Preamble

PRAYERS

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CONTINGENCIES FUND, 1977–78

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Prison Officers' Association

Sentences (Partial Suspension)

Indictable Offences

Police (Recruitment)

Metropolitan Police Computer

Fines and Custodial Sentences

Prisoners and Human Rights

European Assembly Elections

Refugees

District Council Elections

Juvenile Courts

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Orders of the Day — INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY BILL

Clause 1

Clause 2

Financial Provisions

Orders of the Day — REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Orders of the Day — INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY BILL

Orders of the Day — BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Orders of the Day — FIELD VEGETABLES (DESTRUCTION)

Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH RAILWAYS (No. 2) BILL
(By Order)

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)

EAST KILBRIDE DISTRICT BILL
(By Order)

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL
POWERS) BILL (By Order)

CHESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]
(By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

SHETLAND ISLANDS COUNCIL ORDER
CONFIRMATION BILL

LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION
BILL

GAIRLOCH PIER ORDER CONFIRMATION
BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time.

CONTINGENCIES FUND, 1977–78

Accounts ordered:

Of the Contingencies Fund 1977–78 showing (1) the Receipts and Payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended 31 March 1978, and (2) the Distribution of the Capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year; with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon—[Mr. Robert Sheldon.]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Prison Officers' Association

Mr. Michael Spicer: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to meet representatives of the Prison Officers' Association.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I met representatives of the Prison Officers' Association as recently as last night.

Mr. Spicer: Is the Home Secretary aware that the frustrations in the prison service are now so great that they are planned to explode into industrial action, from midnight on Sunday, which, if sustained, is bound to create riots in prisons up and down the country? Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it was his personal decision not to publish an interim part of the May committee report on prison officers' pay?

Mr. Rees: On the latter part of the question, it was the decision of Mr. Justice May, who is in charge of the investigation. I agree with him. In reply to the first part of the question, this is involved in the Civil Service dispute. It is an overtime ban which, I agree, could have very bad results. But we shall have to wait and see what happens next week.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What on earth was my right hon. Friend doing meeting the prison officers last night? More importantly, does he not accept that it would help both prison officers and those for whom they have responsibility if there were a changed emphasis in their role away from the custodial to a more welfare-orientated function? Would it not be useful if the professional training and status of prison officers could be enhanced by further training so that they could involve themselves in welfare work with prisoners within prison and outside in places such as hostels and detoxification centres?

Mr. Rees: In reply to the first part of the question, I met the POA, as I have done a number of times recently, because it is my job to do so, in the context of


some of the problems of the prison service. On the latter part, I think that there is a great deal in my hon. Friend's suggestion. Much is already done, particularly in some psychiatric prisons. This is a laudable ideal. It is not just a question of expenditure, but I hope for developments over the years. I know that the Prison Officers' Association has this matter very much in mind.

Mr. Lawrence: Can the Home Secretary explain why his Government have been such a mitigated success in relation to the prison service that the Prison Officers' Association is so utterly and completely dissatisfied with him?

Mr. Rees: When the hon. Gentleman relates his remarks in such a narrowly political aspect, there is no doubt that we are coming to an election. He will find that this matter extends back over a long period and is very complicated. It is concerned with the changed role of the prison service, the size of prisons and the number of violent people who are in prisons. It does not alter overnight. It is a deep-seated problem.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is not one of the ways of relieving pressure on prison officers to relieve the pressure on the numbers in prison by providing alternative methods of treatment? Could not something be done for the detoxification centre in South Leeds, about which my right hon. Friend will be well aware?

Mr. Rees: The centre is not in south Leeds, and I am well aware of that. Extra money has been provided, and money will need to be provided constantly over a period. Although it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, I believe that we can get through the problem if the methods now being used are changed. I want the detoxification unit in Leeds to continue.

Sentences (Partial Suspension)

Mr. Mayhew: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to complete his review of the factors affecting the implementation of section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977—partial suspension of sentences.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): We have the matter under continuing review, but I do

not think that the hard-pressed prison system can yet accept either the extra work that implementation might involve or the risk that larger numbers might be committed by the courts.

Mr. Mayhew: Does the hon. Gentleman recall saying on Report during the passage of the Criminal Law Bill 1977 that it was better to have such a provision on the statute book than to miss the boat? Does he agree that the partially suspended sentence, which the section provides and which he introduced on Report, represents the best practical means of reducing overcrowding in the prisons while preserving the ability of the courts to pass sentences that mark the severity of the offence?

Mr. John: That is right, and that is why the provision is on the statute book. The hon. and learned Gentleman should be aware that the climate has been changed somewhat by the Conservative Party's insistence upon short, sharp sentences. The fear exists in the prison service that far from partially suspended sentences being used instead of prison sentences they will be used to give the short, sharp shock that many people are looking for. We know that it was not really meant seriously, but some outside the House take the Conservative Party seriously.

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have always opposed the section? I did so before it was enacted. It will have the effect of increasing the prison population at a time when there is no room in the prisons. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that there is a body of opinion that says that the section is thoroughly retrogressive, acts against good penal practice and should never be implemented?

Mr. John: That depends upon the way in which it is used. If it is used instead of fully custodial sentences, I believe that it will be a progressive measure. It is precisely the fear that my hon. and learned Friend articulates that has caused us to pause and to consider whether, in the present state and size of the prison population, it would place unacceptable burdens upon the prison service.

Mr. Edward Gardner: Contrary to what the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) has said, did not the hon. Gentleman concede in


Committee during the passage of the Criminal Law Act 1977 that the recommendation would reduce the prison population? Does he agree that it is one of the most certain ways of dealing with the present crisis in the prisons caused by over-population?

Mr. John: No. Part of my speech was to the effect that it was my hope and intention that the courts would use the section in such a way as to reduce the prison population but that I could not guarantee that that would be so. At present the prison authorities are worried lest there should be an increase in sentences to give people a taste of imprisonment, thereby increasing the prison population.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: We shall have to move a little quicker now.

Indictable Offences

Mr. John Ellis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the figures for indictable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales in 1978, as compared with 1977.

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about the recently published statistics of crime on London.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: In 1978 the number of indictable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales was about 2½ million. I am glad to be able to say that this was 3 per cent. fewer than in 1977, the first year-on-year fall since 1973. The number of indictable offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police in 1978 was about 567,000, which was also fewer than in 1977.

Mr. Ellis: As there are many who are concerned about the state of law and order, will my right hon. Friend explain why the media have not made a great song and dance about the figures? They have been hardly mentioned. Why have not the Opposition and others drawn attention to the figures? Has not my right hon. Friend publicised them to the media? Perhaps I should be criticising him. The figures represent a

welcome change and I think that the general public should receive the message that a Labour Administration leads to a happier and more law-abiding society.

Mr. Rees: In some curious fashion the press statement statistical bulletin that I issued some weeks ago was hardly mentioned in the press. When similar figures were issued a year ago the press used them extensively. The newspapers always make a subjective analysis of political matters.

Mr. Spearing: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the figures for London are especially pleasing? East London has many social problems, but the figures indicate that the effectiveness of this area of Government responsibility is considerably greater than many Opposition Members constantly suggest.

Mr. Rees: I agree. I have made special arrangements for Messrs. Saatchi and Saatchi to have the figures in case it uses them in the next few weeks and the Opposition do not get the facts right.

Mr. Whitelaw: For the avoidance of any doubt, does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that anyone with any interest in our country will welcome an reduction in the crime figures? Does he accept that his hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) is wrong? I have already expressed my welcome of the figures publicly. Funnily enough, my welcome of the figures was no more publicised than the right hon. Gentleman's release of them. May I also say to the right hon. Gentleman that when crimes of violence and vandalism are increasing there can be no room for complacency? However, any change for the better is to be welcomed.

Mr. Rees: It is not a matter of complacency. When the overall figure is increasing there are some figures within the total that are falling and some that are rising. My complaint is that when the figures are increasing responsibility is laid firmly at the door of the Labour Government. Nobody considers the figures that lie within the total. I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has said because I know that he will ensure that this aspect of law and order does not arise during the general election campaign.

Mr. Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all Opposition Members welcome the improvement of 3 per cent.? Of course, the figures were not published until about a fortnight ago. Does he agree that the way in which statistics are compiled means that as inflation grips the country the number of reportable offences of criminal damage increases? Does he also agree that if it had not been for inflation the number of reported cases of criminal damage would have been static instead of producing a 13 per cent. rise? Will be look into that?

Mr. Rees: The £20 limit has had an effect on the figures in recent years. That is all the more reason why those who do not understand statistics, such as advertising agents, should be instructed before they say anything about them.

Police (Recruitment)

Mr. Andrew MacKay: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the level of recruitment into the police force.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill): I am pleased to say that police recruiting continues to improve. Strength increased from 102,086 at the end of 1974 to 109,075 at the end of 1978, a total increase of 6,989. During January 1979 there was a further increase of 869, bringing the total strength to 109,944 and total increase since 1974 to 7,858.

Mr. MacKay: Does the hon. Lady agree that the figures are at least superficially encouraging? Will she be good enough to explain how many of the new recruits are women? Does she agree that many of the difficult jobs that have to be done by police officers are not able to be undertaken by women officers and that therefore the figures may be slightly artificial?

Dr. Summerskill: I regret that the hon. Gentleman is so churlish as not to be able to give a strong welcome to the total increase in the strength of the police. All he can find to do is chauvinistically attack the policewomen in his own constituency, who, I am sure are doing a very valuable job.

Mr. Madden: Will the Minister further confirm that, as regards provincial police

forces comparing the main period of office of this Labour Government and the main period of office of the last Conservative Government, the number of policemen on duty has increased and that the gap between authorised establishment and those on duty is considerably less?

Dr. Summerskill: Yes, I can confirm what my hon. Friend says. The increase is also largely due, according to the full figures for the last quarter, to the recent pay award to the police forces.

Mr. David Howell: Although I strongly agree with the hon. Lady about the value of the pay award and the Edmund-Davies report—though we would have liked to see that award paid all at once—and although we certainly welcome any increase in the strength of the police force, may I ask the hon. Lady whether she agrees that resignations are still appallingly high and that there is now talk of many more resignations later this year? Does that give grounds for complacency or contentment at all?

Dr. Summerskill: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. A substantial part of the drop in wastage which has occurred over the second half of 1978—a drop of 30 per cent.—has been caused by deferment of retirement due to this pay increase.

Mr. Townsend: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there are any plans to lower the minimum age of recruitment into the police service from 18½ years to 18 years.

Dr. Shirley Summerskill: We have no such plans.

Mr. Townsend: Bearing in mind that people are maturing earlier and that those aged 18 can do jury service and enter into a legal contract, why can they not join the police force at 18? Why should there be this strange anomaly between the Armed Forces and the police forces?

Dr. Summerskill: This subject has been given a lot of consideration. The Association of Chief Police Officers considered the age limit only two months ago and said that no further reduction was necessary at the moment. The present age limit means that after allowing for initial training very few constables are on the streets below the age of 19, and that is what the association prefers.

Mr. Sever: Those figures are welcome. Since recruitment is obviously being stepped up, does my hon. Friend think that it is possible to indicate to chief constables, particularly in the inner urban areas, that it is advisable where possible to put new recruits into training in the community and on the streets, rather than driving around in patrol vehicles?

Dr. Summerskill: That is a matter for the chief constables. Any boy or girl who leaves school at 16 and wishes to enter the police force can join the police cadet service at the age of 16.

Metropolitan Police Computer

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is an entry on the Metropolitan Police computer on the hon. Member for Lewisham, West; and if so, what it contains.

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is an entry on the Metropolitan Police computer on the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow; and, if so. what it contains.

Mr. Arthur Latham: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is an entry on the Metropolitan Police computer on the hon. Member for City of Paddington; and, if so, what it contains.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is an entry on the Metropolitan Police computer on the hon. Member for Stockport, North; and if so, what it contains.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I refer my hon. Friends to the reply that I gave to questions by my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick) and Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) on 27 March.

Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that non-answer means that he is not saying anything about anything. Will be confirm that this computer has the capacity for 40 million entries and has, so far, cost the taxpayer over £10 million? Is he also aware that in a recent court case it came to light that an individual, with no criminal record,

was on this computer simply because he was opposed to blood sports? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Green Paper which he is to issue on Friday about open Government really will not mean much until he starts answering questions of this kind and giving people the right of access to their own records?

Mr. Rees: The report of the committee on data protection makes it abundantly clear that those people whose names appear on computers in this way should not have the right to know what is recorded about them. If they did the purpose of such information would be stultified and the fight against crime could become even more difficult. I can assure my hon. Friends that the political beliefs of individuals are of no interest or concern to the police. What the police are concerned with is the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order. Unless an hon. Member, or anybody else, is involved in fraud or crime they do not have any worry whatsoever.

Mr. Mikardo: We all want the police to have the best possible records about criminals and criminality, but is it not true, contrary to what my right hon. Friend has just said, that the specification for the purchase of the police computer mentions that in addition to crime and criminals, quite outside criminality. 1,150,000 Britons are indexed according to what are called their "areas of interest". There are 27 such areas of interest. Will my right hon. Friend put into the Library a list of those 27 areas? Is not this move to computerisation taking a long step, which will lead this hitherto free country, in the direction of the "Gulag Archipelago"?

Mr. Rees: I have looked very carefully at this subject over a long period. Information is collected by the police on a wide variety of matters. When it is put on computers there is no change in essence. Nevertheless, there are problems about which we should be concerned. The Metropolitan Police computer deals with central drugs intelligence and it is proving its worth. There is an illegal immigration section with names, a fraud department and a serious crimes department. There is also a section for the special branch. I feel strongly about it, and say firmly that nobody, whatever his


political views, needs to worry about this. He should be worried if he comes into the other categories.

Mr. Latham: Does my right hon. Friend realise that it would have been very simple and reassuring for him to have said to those of us who tabled this question that there was nothing on those records about my hon. Frends who have raised the question? The fact that he has not done so, despite what he says, is worrying to us and to many other people. My right hon. Friend says that unless one is involved in something fraudulent or criminal one need not worry. However, if there are records for other reasons will be remember his one-time Liberal image—now very much tarnished—and consider whether those of us whose names might be included could be told what the other reasons are?

Mr. Rees: I do not think that my hon. Friend is making the point in the original question. In my view, a Member of Parliament is no different from any other citizen. The Lindop report says that the checking of computers should not take place in the context of revealing the names on the computers. This is a difficult subject. When I consider the problems of fraud and terrorism with which the police are faced. I support that view. I resent being described as anti-liberal because I support that proposition. I am against people who are involved in crime. I believe it to be important that the police have proper facilities to deal with crime.

Mr. Bennett: Will the Home Secretary tell us what provision is made for ensuring that the computer records are accurate, in order to protect the individual from inaccurate information being put on computer and also to assist the police with accurate information?

Mr. Rees: I visited Scotland Yard the other day and I spoke about that aspect of accuracy which is more important in a computer system than with information kept on cards. It is most important that information should be looked at carefully. It is a long job but one of the advantages of the computer system is that information is secure from the eyes of other people. I checked on that very carefully. The point that my hon. Friend makes is an important one and should matter to everybody.

Mr. Alan Clark: All the same, when he looks at the identities of the various hon. Members who tabled this somewhat paranoiac question, is not the Home Secretary tempted to ask himself "If not, why not?"

Mr. Rees: The short answer to that is that "Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones."

Fines and Custodial Sentences

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give further consideration to suggested alternatives to both fines and custodial sentences.

Mr. John: There is already a wide range of non-custodial disposals available to the courts, but we keep further possibilities under review.

Mr. Hardy: In order to enhance and complement the relentless and increasingly successful fight against crime for which the present Government deserve to be commended, is it not desirable and economic to widen the sanctions available to the courts? In particular, will the Minister ensure that urgent consideration is given to the extension of community service orders, especially in areas such as mine where the scheme has been demonstrably successful?

Mr. John: Yes. There are two matters to be considered. First, there is the consideration of new possibilities which are now under review. Secondly, we must extend the number of proved successes. Community service is one of the successes and under this Government it has been extended.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does the Minister agree that probation officers and the probation service as a whole can play a major part, not only in supervising those who have committed crimes, but in rehabilitating offenders? Will the Government pay more attention to pay and conditions in the probation service and give these excellent and experienced people the support that they need?

Mr. John: As the pay negotiations do not start until July, that matter is premature. It is for the courts to decide whether to impose probation orders.

Prisoners and Human Rights

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has and what investigations he has made as to the state of prisons and any infringement of human rights existing therein in countries with which the United Kingdom have extradition treaties.

Dr. Summerskill: Our diplomatic representative in the country concerned would keep the United Kingdom Government generally informed of such matters. We would ask for specific inquiry to be made before deciding whether to order the surrender of a fugitive committed by the courts in any case where there was reason to suspect that the penal or judicial system of the requesting State was unacceptable.

Mr. King: Does the Under-Secretary of State accept that where prison conditions in other countries are less satisfactory than they should be, there is good ground for revising extradition treaties? Will the hon. Lady have regard to recent cases in that respect?

Dr. Summerskill: The Extradition Act 1870 is being further examined by an interdepartmental working party. No doubt it will take that matter into account.

Mr. Powell: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that the temperate nature of her statement of the policy of the Government contrasts favourably with the behaviour of politicians in foreign countries who see fit to pontificate in public on inadequate, and in many cases false, evidence, upon the conditions in Her Majesty's prisons?

Dr. Summerskill: The Government have certainly noticed that.

Mr. Christopher Price: Will my hon. Friend have another look at the case of Mr. A. J. Simpson, about whom I have already written to her? Is she aware that before he was extradited to the United States she gave me her solemn assurance in writing that he would not be subjected to solitary confinement as part of his sentence? Is she aware that that assurance has been completely and flagrantly broken and that he is now in solitary confinement? When can I expect a reply to my letter?

Dr. Summerskill: I am aware that my hon. Friend has written to me. I can assure him that he will receive a detailed reply before the end of next week.

European Assembly Elections

Mr. Dykes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he has prepared any guidance to candidates in the European elections as to when they can commence formal campaigning under the European Assembly Elections Regulations 1979.

Mr. John: No, Sir.

Mr. Dykes: Would it not be helpful to give guidance, because in this case the election date is fixed and therefore there is confusion?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Somebody appears to be taking photographs with a flashlight. Is that not out of order in the House?

Mr. Speaker: It is highly irregular for anyone to take pictures in the House. No doubt, if it is not on the Floor of the House, the matter will be attended to.

Mr. Dykes: Would not a guidance document be helpful, because candidates are confused about when they will be campaigning officially? Is the commencement date for the campaign 7 May?

Mr. John: The date will be 2 May when the formal step is first taken. There is no difference from a parliamentary election, in the sense that if a candidate spends money to promote his candidature he must be prepared to include that in his return of expenditure.

Refugees

Mr. Rhodes James: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will review the requirements for refugee visas from applicants in Argentina.

Mr. Flannery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the great decrease in the number of refugees from Chile admitted to the United Kingdom in 1978, he will consider admitting more applicants who are in danger in Argentina.

Mr. John: We continue to consider applications from Argentina sympathetically, in the light of the policy with regard to the admission of refugees from Latin America which my right hon. Friend announced on 22 June last year. The number of applications has declined recently.
Our refugee programmes are kept under regular review, but I see no reason for a further revision of the criteria at present.

Mr. Rhodes James: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that the requirements for granting refugee visas from Argentina now include the names and addresses of relatives and friends of the applicant—information which could be highly dangerous to those relatives and friends? Will the Minister re-examine the Home Office regulations and requirements, because they affect the lives and future of many people?

Mr. John: Regulations are not involved. The requirements include the presence here of family or relatives. I shall examine the problem raised by the hon. Member.

Mr. Flannery: Will my hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the compassion shown in admitting refugees from Chile into Britain? Does he remember that I recently asked him a question and it was revealed that, possibly due to the good work on behalf of the Government, the numbers had declined? Does he agree that those regimes are terrible? Will be seriously consider increasing the number of refugees allowed in from Argentina, which we now realise has an even more terrible regime than that of Chile—bad as that regime continues to be?

Mr. John: As my right hon. Friend said on 22 June last year, applications will be received from those who show a genuine need for resettlement and who have ties with this country. The number of applications has declined. Unless we receive them we cannot entertain them.

Mr. Stanbrook: When will the Government come to a conclusion about the request of the United Kingdom representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that we

should prepare a proper procedure and rules for the determination of the status of refugees?

Mr. John: The hon. Member is talking about the London representative of UNHCR. I am conducting a review of the procedures involved. We have no reason to be ashamed of our record on the receipt of refugees. It is a good record.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is there not a real anxiety about the arrangements that we have made in the Geneva convention which seem to leave a gap? Could not that gap be filled by a separate unit to assess whether a person is eligible within the convention to be a refugee? If a person is being persecuted in Argentina, although he went there from Chile, does he not fall within the meaning of the convention?

Mr. John: Yes. However, I do not agree that a third body to assess the criteria should supplant ministerial responsibility.

District Council Elections

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied with warding arrangements for the May district council elections.

Mr. John: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Renton: In view of the announcement that the general election will be held on 3 May, will the Minister now consider postponing the district council elections?

Mr. Woodall: Windy.

Mr. Renton: I shall not be standing. If that were to be done, it would avoid confusion—[Interruption]—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is clear that the scent of the hustings is upon us. However, we should continue with normal business as long as we are here.

Mr. Renton: —because many district councils, such as my own, have not yet finalised their warding arrangements. That will mean further district elections in 1980 and every year thereafter. Will there not also be a shortage of about 22,000 ballot boxes on 3 May?

Mr. John: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's questions is, almost universally, "No". I do not believe that there is a possibility for confusion. There may be confusion in Mid-Sussex, but that is not flattering to the hon. Gentleman's electorate.

Mr. Wigley: In view of the fact that the two elections are to be held on the same day, will the Minister consider, if he has not already done so, the extension of the hours for the district council elections. For voting purposes, one election is to be held from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. and the other from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Mr. John: That matter will be considered, but it does not strictly arise out of the question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Ward: Peterborough will be satisfied with warding arrangements on 3 May. But does the Minister propose any changes in the arrangements for the parish council elections on that day, which are a third complication?—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Both sides should feel better now and we can carry on.

Mr. John: I had no idea, Mr. Speaker, that my supplementary would be so popular.
There will be a Bill on the matter of Parish councils. I ask the hon. Gentleman to await that.

Juvenile Courts

Mr. Temple-Morris: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to give juvenile courts the power to make residential care orders.

Mr. John: No, Sir.

Mr. Temple-Morris: Is the Minister aware that there is a somewhat delicate balance of power between the courts and the social workers? Does he not agree that the courts, in necessary circumstances, should have the power to say who goes into residential care and who does not?

Mr. John: We have been concerned with this delicate balance of power in every Question Time for the last year. It is vital that there should be undivided responsibility. That responsibility is best placed where it is at the moment—with the local authority. The hon. Gentleman

will know—as I do—that the code of conduct has helped to clarify for local authorities the circumstances in which courts may expect a young person not to go home on the disposition of a case.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Does not my hon. Friend agree that this demand for increased public expenditure by the Conservative Party is, first, unnecessary, because the numbers of juveniles are small, and, secondly, that the demand is counterproductive? What is needed to deal with the problem is a full implementation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 and the provision of proper public funds to make that Act a reality in practice.

Mr. John: I agree with my hon. Friend. Never have so few juveniles been elevated to such major crime.

Mr. Stan Crowther: As an alternative to residential care orders, does not my hon. Friend think that it would be a good idea to introduce legislation allowing community service to be applied to juvenile offenders, in view of the great success achieved by that system for adult offenders as an alternative to prison?

Mr. John: That is an interesting point. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, hitherto, we have concentrated on making community service universally available. When it is, and when it is working universally, we shall move on.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 29 March.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had an Audience of Her Majesty The Queen. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.

Mr. Blaker: Will the Prime Minister take the opportunity today to reconsider his attitude on the question of observers for the Rhodesian election? It will not now be possible for any hon. Member seeking election to this House to attend as an observer in Rhodesia. Is it not


important that some observers should be sent from this country, perhaps officials or those from other walks of life, so that advice can be offered to the incoming Government?

The Prime Minister: It is clear to the hon. Gentleman that most hon. Members will be rather busy at that time. Of course, anyone else is free to go and the Government will be willing to facilitate such arrangements. Such persons would have to go under careful auspices for a number of reasons, including personal safety and security. That should be borne clearly in mind.

Mr. Noble: When my right hon. Friend speaks to the nation will be draw particular attention to the industrial policies spawned by the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph)? Will my right hon. Friend point out to the nation that, should those policies ever come to fruition, they will lead to the destruction of industries, which have served and are serving the nation well, and to unemployment on a massive scale?

The Prime Minister: There will be a clear issue in the forthcoming discussions, which, apparently, have already begun, as you remarked, Mr. Speaker. As to the attitude that we should take on industrial matters, I have no doubt that a system of co-operation is better than one of confrontation.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I should like to return to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker). Will the Prime Minister tell the House how he will assess the success and fairness of the Rhodesian elections if observers are not sent? Will be not be honest with the country and go from office with some credibility in dealing with foreign affairs by admitting that the Government should send some form of observer force to Rhodesia to oversee the elections?

The Prime Minister: The Government have taken the decision that they will not send official observers. Our diplomats are available and have been in Salisbury in recent days. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to volunteer, no doubt he will do so. For the Government to assume the responsibility of sending observers would,

in our judgment, make it extremely difficult for us to act in a mediatory capacity afterwards and to help bring peace, in view of the attitude that has been taken towards those elections by those who are now fighting outside the borders of Rhodesia.

Mr. Spearing: In the course of a busy day, will the Prime Minister take time to go to the Library and look at the EEC Court ruling of November last, concerning the ownership of nuclear material in this country? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the implications of the judgment are that the Commission lays claim to ownership of all nuclear material in this country'? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the long-term protection is an amendment to the European Communities Act 1971. But, as short-term protection against the supine attitude to the EEC of leaders of the Conservative Party—both present and past—does he not agree that the country needs the protection of a Labour Government at the next election?

The Prime Minister: The treaty contains provisions about the possibility of plutonium passing into the hands of the Commission. Let me state clearly that that would be totally unacceptable to the Government—both the possession of the plutonium and the protection of it, which is of the most vital importance. It should be kept in our hands. I am certain that France, the other nuclear power which is also a member of the Community, would not agree to that either.

Mr. Viggers: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 29 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I have just given to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker).

Mr. Viggers: Is the Prime Minister aware that one group that will contemplate his departure with particular pleasure is our Armed Forces? Having signally failed to do justice in Service pay when he should have done, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Labour Party will reappraise the situation, particularly bearing in mind the imminent election and the marginal constituencies


of Rochester and Chatham, Plymouth, Devonport and Portsmouth, North?

The Prime Minister: I fully realise that electoral matters are at the top of the hon. Gentleman's mind, but we have made clear our position and policy on these issues and we intend to stick to them. We rely on the good sense of the country in these matters. If either side were to engage in a Dutch auction in giving excessive and unjustifiable wage increases to those who demand them, the future of this country would be very bleak. If we had been willing to do that, we would not, perhaps, be having some of the industrial troubles through which we are passing.

Mr. Ashton: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to consider the Opposition's attitude to the Civil Service strike? Is he aware that the Leader of the Opposition has not been calling civil servants thugs or bully boys or saying that they are holding the country to ransom? Could that be because she thinks that most civil servants vote Tory or live in marginal constituencies? Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the right hon. Lady gets to be Prime Minister she will bring in such huge public expenditure cuts that most of them will not have a job anyway?.

The Prime Minister: I regret very much the industrial disruption taking place in the Civil Service. I understand that an offer was made which was unacceptable because it is much below the assessment that the unions place on the result of the exercise in comparability. The Cabinet considered the matter this morning and we are ready to make a further offer to the Civil Service unions which will be more in accordance with what we think is appropriate, although I think that it will be far less than the unions are demanding. Of course, if Conservative Members would like the strike to continue—and perhaps they would—no doubt they will say so.

Mrs. Thatcher: As the Prime Minister mentioned his dislike of Dutch auctions in connection with what may occur during the next three or four weeks, may I make quite clear that we shall honour the pension commitments that he announced yesterday?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful for the right hon. Lady's support. It will make the passage of our Finance Bill after the election that much easier.

Mr. Heffer: As the right hon. Lady has said that she will honour pledges, will my right hon. Friend spare a moment to think about the statement of the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) that Merseyside has no special problems, even though the Government made it a special development area? May we therefore assume that the status of Merseyside as a special development area, with grants and assistance for industry, will be withdrawn if the Conservative Party wins the next election—which it will not anyway?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend need not worry unduly. I do not think that the Conservative Party will be in a position after the election to help or to hinder in this matter. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing to my attention the fact that one of our newest hon. Members, the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), in an interesting article in The Daily Telegraph today has told us that if, by chance, the Conservative Patry were returned to power, it should get rid of regional development grants, aid to industry, index-linking for old-age pensions and a great many other measures. The right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition has gained an important recruit to her cause and one with whom, no doubt, she finds herself in great sympathy.

Mr. Dykes: Is it true that along with his many other meetings today, the Prime Minister is to have a meeting with his colleagues to admonish them for singing "The Red Flag" last night, since that ultimately reminds us all of what the Labour Party is really about?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt) will remember that when I first came into the House in 1945, that anthem rang round the rafters of the House. Somehow the building still stands firm and secure.

Mr. Mellish: My right hon. Friend will probably be discussing some time today the allocation of television time during the forthcoming election campaign. May I plead with him not to be


difficult but to ensure that the Leader of the Opposition is given every opportunity to appear on television so that the public outside can have a sample of the rubbish that she usually talks here and see the right hon. Lady for what she is really worth?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is always robust in his approach and he is well liked in all quarters of the House. I want to say—and I hope that it will be accepted in the spirit in which I put it forward—that I trust that the election will be fought not on anyone's personality but on the issues with which we are confronted.

Mr. Henderson: Since none of the questions today has had anything to do with the forthcoming election, will the Prime Minister explain in his broadcast tonight that the reason why he did not press ahead with the vote on the Scotland Act order was his cowardice in calling the bluff—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I know that the House is excited, but "cowardice" is an unparliamentary expression when applied to a right hon. or hon. Member.

Mr. Henderson: Let me put it this way. Will the Prime Minister explain to the country that it was his timidity in facing the rebels in his own ranks who wanted to see devolution defeated at all costs which caused his downfall in last night's vote?

The Prime Minister: I do not know whether that is the last oration that we shall hear from the hon. Gentleman, but, if it is, I regret that he has so misrepresented the position. I am looking forward to going to Scotland to explain that we might have been able to make some progress but for the actions of the SNP Members who have consistently supported the Conservative Party on votes of censure and who, by their actions last night, prevented any further progress on devolution.

Mr. Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that had it not been for the activity of the Scottish nationalists last night, as one of the 40 per cent. rebels I would have been anxious to take part in the Scotland vote? Will the Prime Minister also consider the fact that, while I was counting the "No" votes, I bumped into the hon.

Member for Banff (Mr. Watt)? I thought it strange that he was not at the other end counting the "Aye" votes. He was shaking at the knees, and I asked him how he thought it was going. He thought that we had won by three votes. When I explained to him that it was dangerously close—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The longer that I am here the clearer it becomes that the more we change the more we stay the same. That applies to every one of us. I think that the Prime Minister has gathered the trend of his hon. Friend's question.

Mr. Flannery: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May we hear the end of that question?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I realise that the House is anxious to hear the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I am curious too, so I shall let him finish.

Mr. Skinner: When I told the hon. Member for Banff that it was dangerously close and that we might lose because of the state of health of my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Sir A. Broughton)—

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: He had to send his trousers to the cleaners.

Mr. Skinner: —he gave me the clear impression that he wanted a re-run of the vote so that he could vote on that occasion in our Lobby.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Lord President the business that he proposes to ask the House to complete before the Dissolution?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I should like to make a statement on the business that the House will be asked to complete before Dissolution.
As the Order Paper shows today, the House is being asked to approve a motion to allow Government business to be taken tomorrow, 30 March, so that we can complete the remaining stages of the Merchant Shipping Bill, proceedings on the Legal Aid Bill [Lords], remaining stages of the Land Registration (Scotland)


Bill [Lords] and of the Credit Unions Bill, and to approve some procedural motions.
MONDAY 2 APRIL.—The House will be asked to agree proceedings on the Representation of the People Bill.
Completion of remaining stages of the Arbitration Bill [Lords]; the Crown Agents Bill and the Consents to Prosecutions Bill; and proceedings on the Pneumoconiosis Etc. (Workers' Compensation) Bill.
TUESDAY 3 APRIL. —Proceedings on the Finance Bill and on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.
Completion of remaining stages of the Weights and Measures Bill; the Leasehold Reform Bill; and the Carriage by Air and Road Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY, 4TH APRIL—Consideration of any Lords amendments to the Banking Bill; the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Bill; and the Estates Agents Bill.
Proceedings on the Ancient Monuments Bill [Lords], and on the three consolidation measures—the Exchange Equalisation Account Bill [Lords]; the International Monetary Fund Bill [Lords]; and the Prosecution of Offences Bill [Lords].
After Royal Assent has been given to Bills agreed to by both Houses, the House will be adjourned.
During the week, Mr. Speaker, it may also be necessary to ask the House to approve other business of an urgent character.

Mrs. Thatcher: Will the Lord President be a little more forthcoming about the proceedings on the Representation of the People Bill? Presumably that Bill arises because the election is being held on what was to be a local election day. Is it proposed to postpone that local election or at least ensure that voting facilities are provided in separate booths and with separate ballot boxes?

Mr. Foot: Both matters are covered in the Bill. The right hon. Lady and the House will have the opportunity to look at the Bill in detail on Monday. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is giving a press conference on the Bill this afternoon, which is normal when Bills are published.

Mrs. Thatcher: If the Lord President knows the answers to the questions, will be please give them?

Mr. Foot: I have stated what I think is the best way of proceeding. The House will have a full opportunity to look at what is proposed.

Mr. Beith: Is it not an insult to this House that proceedings on its elections and those of the local authorities should be announced by means of a press conference? Will the Lord President at least tell the House whether he intends to postpone the parish council elections, as one of his colleagues appeared to concede a few moments ago, during Home Office questions? Will be please give the House information to which it is entitled?

Mr. Foot: What was said by my hon. Friend about the postponement of the parish council elections is included in the Bill. What I have just said on our procedure is nothing out of the ordinary. When a Bill is published, explanations of it are often given so that the public generally are able to make comments on it. The House will have a full opportunity to discuss the Bill on Monday. When the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and others consider the matter, they will see that we have proceeded with it in the best possible way in the interests of the House.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the Home Secretary is present and he is to give a press conference this afternoon, would it be in order for him to make a statement to the House?

Mr. Foot: If the House would prefer it, the best course would be for my right hon. Friend to make a statement to the House tomorrow. [HON. MEMBERS: "Now; now."] It would be much simpler for the House to do it tomorrow. When the House sees what is proposed, it will realise that it is the best way of proceeding. I shall certainly take into account what the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) has suggested.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Surely the Leader of the House must see that that reply, far from satisfying the House, has enraged it even further. If there is to be a


Bill, the statement of the Home Secretary should be made first to the House and then to the members of the press.

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) requests that, and the House asks that we should have a statement today, we shall certainly do our best to secure that. I repeat that the way we have sought to proceed is the normal way in which a Bill is presented.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Home Secretary seems to have indicated by nodding his head that he is perfectly happy to bring this matter to a conclusion. Could we not have a statement after business questions?

Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Of course I wish to satisfy the House. I want to secure the best way of proceeding with this matter. It was our belief that we had dealt with this issue in a perfectly normal way. There will be full opportunities to debate the matter on Monday. If a statement is to be made today, it would have to be done at 10 p.m. [HON. MEMBERS: "No".] That is the normal way in which such a statement would be made. Personally, I would have thought that the best time for the statement to be made would be before the debate on the Bill, preferably tomorrow morning. That is the best suggestion in the interests of the House.

Mr. Whitelaw: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Clearly the House wants the statement to be made today. [Interruption.] I am trying to help the Leader of the House; perhaps hon. Members will allow me to try to be reasonable. Clearly the Home Secretary is not in a position to make a statement immediately. We must accept that—

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Why?

Mr. Whitelaw: For the best of all possible reasons—he acknowledges that he is not ready, and I can see that he has not got the statement with him. In view of the business that we have today, would it not be reasonable, once we have completed the IBA Bill and before we proceed to the debate on the White Paper, to interrupt proceedings and have the statement?

Mr. Foot: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I would be happy to accept his suggestion. I am not quite sure what time that would be, but I shall try to give some indication when the statement will be.

Mr. John Ellis: Does the Lord President agree that this uproar could have been foreseen, because Conservative Members do not want the election on the same day as the local elections? They want the local elections to be held later, so that there will be a poor turnout. Generally, people in this country would like the convenience of going to the elections once, as there will be many elections this year—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I make an appeal to the House? There will be plenty of opportunities in the weeks to come for all the excitement. Will hon. Members please ask questions on the business for next week?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am asking you this now because your reply may affect questions that we may have to ask the Leader of the House later. If the House agrees to suspend the Standing Order tomorrow and take Government business, this means that there may be starred amendments to the Merchant Shipping Bill. In the normal course of events, in which Government business would not have been taken, these amendments would not have been starred. Since this is a matter within your discretion, Mr. Speaker, it would be very helpful if you could indicate that in these unusual circumstances you would ignore the fact that the amendments were starred in deciding whether to call them.

Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the hon. Member. That is a factor that I will bear in mind, but the House will not expect me to make a ruling off the cuff straight away. I promise to give the most serious consideration to what has been said.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: In view of the changed arrangements, will there be discussions this afternoon on the White Paper on broadcasting, or will that be shelved?

Mr. Foot: I do not think that it needs to be shelved. The statement that the


right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) has suggested should come after the discussions on the Bill will not take very long. I hope that we can then continue with the business on the Order Paper.

Mr. David Price: Is the Lord President aware that to hold a general election and district council elections on the same day will put a very severe strain on returning officers and their staff—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but since there will be a statement later on this question, perhaps we could leave questions on that issue until that statement is made. It will save a lot of time now.

Mr. Price: The only point is, Mr. Speaker, that an announcement has been made from 10 Downing Street. This will go out to returning officers at the technical staff level. Judging from my past experience I expect that they will be in an awful tizz, as it is physically impossible in some rural areas to hold the two elections together. The sooner a statement is made to the people involved in running these elections, the better it will be for the smooth running of our democracy.

Mr. Rooker: Will the Leader of the House tell us whether it will be in order, on the finance legislation on Tuesday, to draw attention to the proceedings in Standing Committee D on 14 June 1977, to the effect that the only amendments on the Order Paper advocating indexation of personal allowances to protect the low-paid were Nos. 331 and 338, in the names of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise)? Is he also aware that the Shadow Chancellor made a wholly untrue statement on "The World at One" today?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that my hon. Friend will be able to call attention to these matters in the debate. I presume that his remarks will be in order, but that would not be a decision for me. It is a decision for the Chair.

Sir Bernard Braine: Does the "other business" to which the right hon. Member referred include the promised statement about the safety of 33,000 of my constituents on Canvey Island? If not, why not?

Mr. Foot: It is not necessarily included in the legislation, or anything of that sort, but I shall consult the hon. Member and others to see whether a statement on this matter is possible next week.

Mr. Emery: Will the Leader of the House turn his mind to a purely House of Commons matter and ask the Prime Minister to consult the Leader of the Opposition, through the normal channels, to see whether a joint statement should be made before the Dissolution concerning an agreement to accept the Boyle committee's report in its entirety as soon as it is published, or, failing that, to get Members' salaries out of the position whereby Members of the new Parliament will have to vote increases for themselves? Does he agree that whoever is in Government, salaries of Members of Parliament should be linked with someone in the judiciary or with civil servants? If this was so, the matter could be dealt with properly, irrespective of who is Prime Minister.

Mr. Foot: I fully acknowledge the feelings of the House on this matter. They were stated very clearly when we had these debates. I cannot say that I believe that the best way for the House to proceed would be to have an agreement about a report that has not yet been presented. However, I believe that anyone who looks back at the debates that we had on this matter will appreciate the feelings on both sides of the House.

Mr. William Ross: There are quite a number of Bills that the Government hope to proceed with and get Royal Assent for. Can my right hon. Friend reassure us about the Industry Bill, which has been through all stages in this House and is presently in another place? Can we be assured that it will reach the statute book?

Mr. Foot: I think that there can be every assurance that the Bill will reach the statute book. It is in another place at the moment, and it would be a most extraordinary action if that place now prevented it from reaching the statute book.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: In his statement the Lord President said that the House would be able to deal with the Representation of the People Bill next Monday. As he was able to rush through the Welsh slate quarry Bill to buy three


votes, why cannot the House see it tomorrow?

Mr. Foot: As the hon. Gentleman made a smear that was completely false, I do not see that it is necessary to answer the rest of the question.

Mr. Pavitt: In spite of the difficulties of finding time for any other business next week, will my right hon. Friend look at my early-day motion No. 34, which was signed by more than 170 Members of Parliament from all parties?
[That this House is deeply concerned about the continuing problems confronting blind people; and, believing that blindness is an extremely severe limiting handicap with resultant problems of mobility and additional living expenses needed to pay for services without which living would be intolerable, is firmly of the opinion that the time has now arrived for Her Majesty's Government to introduce a special blindness allowance for all blind persons over 16 years of age and that such an allowance should be comparable in value with the benefit made available to assist people who cannot walk.]
It seeks to do something for persons afflicted with blindness. In spite of the fact that Parliament will soon be dissolved, will the right hon. Gentleman bring this matter to the attention of his colleagues, who will be most interested in this aspect of help for the blind?

Mr. Foot: We shall look at the matter dealt with in the motion put down by my hon. Friend and signed by many hon. Members. He has raised this matter over a number of weeks. I shall certainly see whether a statement can be made about it. I shall take his advice on the consultation.

Mr. Ridsdale: Will the Leader of the House pay attention to the Merchant Shipping Bill, which is due tomorrow? Is he aware that some of us have received representations from the pilots of Trinity House? To enable us to have time to consult the interests concerned, may this business be postponed until Monday? Otherwise, some hon. Members will object to the Bill, although we realise that it is important for shipping interests that this should take place.

Mr. Foot: It is not easy to fit in all the matters with which I believe the House wishes to proceed. I regret that I cannot accept the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman. However, I hope very much that when the House discusses the matter tomorrow it will take these factors into account. The question is whether the great deal of work done on the Bill will be lost. I should have thought that the House would wish to proceed with the Bill. However, hon. Members will be able to give their views tomorrow.

Mr. Cryer: I know that business is arranged in consultation with the Opposition, but will my right hon. Friend consider introducing a Bill next week to require shareholders to give their written consent for political contributions? That will enable the proper democratic scrutiny to be given to contributions from big business to the Tory Party. It may well be that if that suggestion is put forward the Tory Party will object, perhaps because it is not as concerned with democracy as it would like to make out.

Mr. Foot: I wish that I always shared the eternal optimism of my hon. Friend. I know that he has put the proposal in his most appeasing and attractive manner. However, I still doubt whether the official Opposition would agree.

Mr. Tapsell: May I ask the Leader of the House a question that is not related to our party political concerns in Britain but is of considerable importance in the Pacific? Is it the intention of the Government to obtain Royal Assent, before Dissolution, to the legislation now before Parliament to give independence to the Gilbert Islands, as promised, on 12 July, bearing in mind that a long period of uncertainty about the future of Banaba could be damaging to the stability of that area?

Mr. Foot: I accept the desirability of carrying that Bill through the House. However, it is not included among the measures that we can secure before Dissolution.

Mr. Flannery: As the Common Market will be a major concern in the coming general election, will my right hon. Friend read the article in The Guardian today, by John Palmer, which points out that at one stage we were in grave danger of paying 10 times as much


as West Germany to the Common Market? The amount that we paid last year was £750 million, at least.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not asking a business question; he is making a point. If he relates it to a business question, he may conclude it.

Mr. Flannery: As Western Germany pays only £150 million, compared with £750 million from the United Kingdom, will my right hon. Friend, as a matter of urgency, arrange for a major debate in the coming week on the question of the way in which we are being looted by the Common Market, as compared with West Germany?

Mr. Foot: I always read The Guardian and the articles by Mr. John Palmer. I always look with care at his figures. Those figures and arguments will occur in the debate in the country. However, I cannot promise a special debate in the House next week, for obvious reasons.

Mr. Grimond: Whatever the precedents may be, does the Leader of the House not feel that it would be more courteous to the House of Commons, if it is sitting when a Dissolution and general election are announced, if the announcement of the general election were made to the House and not to the press?

Mr. Foot: The House has been treated in the normal manner. It would be unwise for the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else to suggest anything different. It is not the case that this was an improper way with which to deal with the matter; it is the way in which these matters are normally dealt with. I do not think that any hon. Member should make a different suggestion.

Mr. Ward: Will my right hon. Friend consider dropping the Arbitration Bill, to which there is considerable opposition from those outside the House who must live with arbitration?

Mr. Foot: That is one of the Bills that we wish to get through the House. Hon. Members will be able to give their views when these Bills come forward. We hope that most of these Bills—or all, if possible—will go forward fairly speedily. As indicated by the list that I read, that will be necessary to achieve that result.

When they have had a chance of looking at these various measures, hon. Members will see that we have tried to prevent wasting the time that the Government, the House of Commons and the other place have given to these measures. I hope that the House will approach these proposals in that spirit.

Mr. Kershaw: Will the Lord President reconsider the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Mr. Tapsell)? The Gilbert Islands independence Bill is a matter of considerable importance. Will the right hon. Gentleman try to fit it in if he can?

Mr. Foot: I understand the Bill's importance and the fact that it is controversial in some quarters. That must be taken into account. I can understand why the hon. Gentleman grimaces. My proposals take into account the requirements of the House of Commons as a whole.

Mr. Faulds: As hon. Members' bank managers are becoming increasingly despondent and impatient, and as our wives are increasingly denied the standard of living that some of us enjoyed in our previous occupations—and which the rest of the community have—will my right hon. Friend reconsider his reply about hon. Members' salaries and see whether he can institute agreement about this matter before the House is dissolved?

Mr. Foot: I do not believe that that is the best way for the House to deal with the matter. If hon. Members will look back to our debate at the time of the Boyle report and the submission of these matters afresh to the Boyle committee, they will see the way in which the different sides of the House approached the matter. That is the best way to secure the result that I think the House of Commons deserves.

Mr. James Lamond: As my right hon. Friend knows, an important discussion will be held in the Common Market in the next few weeks that will include the question of the amount of textiles that China will be allowed to export to the Common Market. Will there be an announcement during the week about provisions made to safeguard the interests of the British people, and especially the textile industry, in the period of the election campaign?

Mr. Foot: I shall see whether there is any possibility of such a statement, but I cannot give a guarantee. I hope that the House will understand the situation. There are several urgent and important matters about which hon. Members on both sides or their constituents wish to have statements. But if that procedure were followed in all cases there would be a whole list of statements. I do not think that that would be the best way in which to proceed.

Mr. Stokes: Does the Leader of the House remember the question I asked him yesterday, about the whole of the catering staff in the House of Commons going on strike? Will be make a statement on the matter today?

Mr. Foot: I am having a meeting later this afternoon with staff representatives. I hope that we can bring any further possibility of a dispute to an end. I shall talk with them. I heard yesterday of the action taken. It was taken swiftly. Immediately I heard of the action, I offered talks. Those talks are taking place this afternoon.

Mr. Baker: Will the Lord President arrange for a statement to be made next week, before we rise, about the postal strike in London, which may spread outside London? If it does, it will interrupt the delivery of election literature. This could have grave consequences in Marylebone. I am anxious to increase my majority and I can think of no better way of doing so than to ensure that my constituents receive the election addresses of my opponents.

Mr. Foot: Despite the complicated reasoning of the hon. Gentleman, I will, as his suggestion is relevant to the election, see whether a statement should be made upon the subject, but, as I have already said to other hon. Members, we cannot have an accumulation of competing statements during the few days remaining.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. As these are the last business questions before Dissolution, I will call those hon. Members who have already risen, but I hope that they will be brief.

Mr. English: The right hon. Gentleman referred to some procedural motions

for next week. I presume that those include the three suggested unanimously by the all-party Procedure Committee, because it would clearly help the Officers of the House if they had a decision of the House on which they could be working during the period of Dissolution.
My right hon. Friend may not be aware that the leader of the Conservative Party in the city of Nottingham is a sub-postmaster called Jack Green. I do not think that it would be to the advantage of the Conservative Party, the Labour Party or anyone else if his election were to be confused with the election of the right hon. Lady.

Mr. Foot: I will look into the second point raised by my hon. Friend. Concerning his first point, my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension if he thinks that I was suggesting that we should have the important, decisive decisions on these procedure questions in the remaining days of this Parliament. I do not think that that would be the proper way in which to treat the report of the Procedure Committee, which he and others have presented to the House.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Most hon. Members on both sides of the House have no rooted objection to facilitating progress on a measure dealing with ancient monuments and archaeological sites, and we appreciate the assistance which you suggested you might offer tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, on the Merchant Shipping Bill, but is the Leader of the House aware that some of us are very unhappy indeed that this Bill should be taken virtually at 12-hours' notice? We regard it as a major national measure dealing with a major national institution—Trinity House—which imposes very heavy fines on citizens of this country in certain circumstances. Some hon. Members would find it very difficult indeed to deal with the Bill tomorrow.

Mr. Foot: We shall have to see how we proceed. Hon. Members are entitled to express their opinion, but I hope that we can secure the Bill. I believe that there is a widespread desire in the House, particularly after the immense amount of work that has been done on it, that the Bill should reach the statute book in this Session, but if hon. Members take a different view we shall have to accept


that. I still hope that in the debate the argument will be such that we shall be able to get the Bill to another place and on to the statute book in the next few days. An enormous amount of work has been done by hon. Members and others in preparation for the Bill over many months and years. It would be tragic if that were all to be lost in these last few hours.

Mr. Stoddart: With regard to tax allowance indexation, may I have the assurance of my right hon. Friend that the resolution of this House will be that tax allowances should be indexed? May I further have his assurance that that will be put into effect in any finance measure next week? Will the Government resist any attempts by the Opposition to exclude such a measure?

Mr. Foot: We shall do our best to bring these matters before the House in the most satisfactory way. We hope that we shall have the assistance of the Opposition in securing it.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Further to the important point raised by the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond), is the Lord President aware that very important negotiations are taking place at present between the EEC and the United States on the GATT Tokyo round, and that these talks are particularly relevant to employment in the textile and paper and board industries? If it is possible, will the Lord President arrange for the Secretary of State for Trade, as I requested last week, to come to the House to make a statement, so that these industries may know where they stand for the future?

Mr. Foot: I accept the importance of the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond), and I underline the answer that I have already given to my hon. Friend. But I repeat that I do not believe that the House would accept that the best way to proceed next week would be to have a long series of statements on a series of subjects. We have to be selective in some degree, but I will look into it, in exactly the way that I promised my hon. Friend.

Mr. Molloy: Would my right hon. Friend be prepared to consider making arrangements for the Secretary of State for the Environment to make a statement on whether it is permissible and possible

for the London borough of Ealing to make ex gratia payments to the victims of floods that have taken place at Green-ford, in my constituency, particularly as in the past month an independent report has been issued which apportions a great part of the blame for the floods to maladministration and error by that authority? In the interests of fair play and justice, my constituents ought to have ex gratia payments, but the London borough of Ealing majority party and some officials are dodging the column. Should not my right hon. Friend be prepared to make a statement?

Mr. Foot: I cannot promise a statement on the subject, but I will ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to communicate with my hon. Friend on this matter, which I am sure is of great importance to his constituents.

Mr. Adley: Is the Lord President aware that his predilection for press conferences means that he has not told the House the date of the next general election? Does not he feel slightly ashamed of that?
The Lord President told one of his hon. Friends earlier that he hoped to get the Industry Bill through the House. Does not the result of last night's vote effectively mean that the only measures that can go through Parliament now are those that can command the total approval of the House? Is that or is that not so? If it is so, is it not slightly odd for the Lord President to dictate to another place what it should or should not do to a Bill?
With regard to the Merchant Shipping Bill, is the Lord President aware that a new clause was passed, with the support of Back Benchers on each side of the Committee, by 10 votes to two? What will be the position of the Whips on each side of the House if we have to deal with this legislation tomorrow?

Mr. Foot: Concerning the hon. Gentleman's last point, the view of the Government and the recommendation of the Government will be made to the House in the usual manner when the matter is debated in the House tomorrow. I think that that is the proper way in which to deal with it. It would certainly be extraordinary if I were to deal with it by


making special announcements on such matters here and now.
I have indicated that the Industry Bill has gone through this House, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, and is now in the other place and would have been about to receive the Royal Assent. It would be extraordinary if the other place were to interfere with such a Bill at such a moment. I do not believe that it would have the slightest intention of doing so.
The announcement of the date of the election has been made in the usual manner, and I see it as a gross abuse of the English language for anyone to say that I have proceeded shamefully. It shows that some hon. Members have become so hysterical that they abuse the language.

Mr. Edward Lyons: In view of the help to be provided by the Local Government Grants (Ethnic Groups) Bill to local authorities and ratepayers, as well as to ethnic groups, will my right hon. Friend say what has happened to the Bill? As it does not appear in the list for next week, does that mean that the Conservative Party is not prepared to give it an appropriately swift passage to the statute book?

Mr. Foot: There are several Bills, including that Bill, that we would have liked to see on the statute book, but we have to take into account, as the House does, that it would not be possible to get through quite a number of Bills which, although highly desirable, are to some degree controversial. The Bills that we trust will go through the House now are Bills which, almost in their entirety, are uncontroversial.

Mr. Crouch: Is the Leader of the House sure that he is showing his usual courtesy to the House in regard to the manner of the announcement of the Dissolution of Parliament and the date of the next general election? Has he perhaps been guided by a precedent set 55 years ago by the first Labour Prime Minister? Can he let the House know how it was that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald announced to the nation the Dissolution of Parliament? Was it not done in this House first?

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Gentleman and the House will look again, they will see that we have followed precedents exactly.

I do not believe that there is any discourtesy to the House whatever. When hon. Members came to the House they were well aware of the situation, and I believe that it is foolish for them to quibble about a matter of this nature. It is not that the House has been inconvenienced in any way at all by the way in which we have proceeded.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Bearing in mind the speed with which the pneumoconiosis Bill was finally rushed into print, and bearing in mind our general support of it in principle, is the Lord President satisfied that there has been adequate time for consultation with representatives of the sufferers involved, of whom there are a variety? Is he further aware that certainly the Conservatives have not had time to carry out adequate consultations?

Mr. Foot: I fully accept the fact that there has not been time for general consultations on the particular items in the Bill, although there has been considerable time for the subject itself to be discussed. I believe that hon. Members will have to look at the Bill and make up their own minds. I very much hope that the House will be prepared to let this Bill go through. I had thought that it commanded general assent, but that will be for the House. Certainly the Government hope that this Bill can proceed to the statute book.

Mr. Ridley: With regard to the Finance Bill on Tuesday, is the Lord President aware that the Government do not have the authority to make any provision for finance for the next financial year? Is it, therefore, to be a Bill empowering the provisional collection of taxes Acts to be extended, as it should be?

Mr. Foot: I must ask the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and others to await the way in which the Bill is presented. Some discussions are still taking place through the usual channels on these matters. We hope that a generally agreed conclusion will be reached. At the moment I must ask the House and the hon. Gentleman to await the outcome of those discussions.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I entirely accept that the Lord President of the Council is acting in accordance with precedent in not making an announcement himself, or through his right hon. Friend, about the


date of Dissolution, but it seems strange for him to be putting forward a rather conservative argument—"This is what has always been done before". Would he care to tell the House why the statement has not been made to this House, and whether this practice should continue or there should be a change? It would be very interesting to have that as the Lord President's swan song.

Mr. Foot: There is no question of any swan song. The reason why we did not depart from precedent was that we thought that if we did some blithering idiot might get up and ask why we had done so. Therefore, we thought that much the safest course was to act in a conservative manner, particularly because it did not do any harm to anybody. We thought that it might satisfy even the antediluvian right hon. and hon. Members opposite. I thought that we were satisfying everybody. It just shows how difficult it is to please.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say to the Lord President, and for the record, that it is official that there are no blithering idiots in this House?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the provisions of the Order relating to Business of the House made on 2nd November, Government business shall have precedence at tomorrow's sitting. —[Mr. Foot.]

Orders of the Day — INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. BRYANT GODMAN IRVINE in the Chair]

Clause 1

PROVISION OF TRANSMITTING EQUIPMENT
FOR NEW TELEVISION BROADCASTING
SERVICE

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 14, at end insert—
(2) In the provision of this service the Authority shall not discriminate against any region of the United Kingdom.
(3) For the purposes of this Act region ' is defined as it is defined on page 4 of Issue No. 27 of Statistical News' published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, for November 1974.".
It will be obvious from the fact that my colleagues and I did not oppose the business motion a moment ago that we are not attempting to filibuster this Bill. It is, however, interesting that there is a tremendous attempt to rush this Bill through the House before the Dissolution.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will automatically accept this amendment. Most of us believe in non-discrimination for various purposes. One would have thought that an amendment of this character was hardly necessary. One would have thought that a body such as the Independent Broadcasting Authority—the Independent Television Authority as it was—would not have attempted to discriminate against regions of the United Kingdom.
Unfortunately, this amendment is necessitated by the fact that the IBA has discriminated, and the fact that the East Midlands is the only region of the economic planning regions—which I believe I should technically call the "standard regions" of the United Kingdom, such as the North-West, North-East, Northern, East Midlands, West Midlands.


South-East and South-West—which does not have a television programme company. It is the only one that is not provided with its own independent regional service. We are totally dominated by the services provided by ATV from either the Shepperton Studios or Birmingham.
A week or two ago I understand that Lord Windlesham, who is managing director of ATV, suggested that these relatively recent complaints would be satisfied if there was a little opt-out, whereby Birmingham would graciously allow the people of the East Midlands their own magazine programme for half an hour a day. That is hardly sufficient for the purpose.
What we in the East Midlands want is what every other region has, be it Scotland, East Anglia, which is a very appropriate example because it is a smaller region in numbers of people than the East Midlands, London, Wales or Northern Ireland. We simply want the rights that everyone else has. In other words, we do not wish to take away the great profits that ATV makes, not only for itself but for the country as a whole, by producing films to be shown abroad, thereby earning money for the kingdom and itself. We are not concerned with that. Good luck to ATV. We are not concerned that the East Midlands should have one of the great major network companies that dominate the independent channel.
We are concerned, however, that a very large and prosperous region of the United Kingdom should have the same minimal rights of a second-rank programme company that would provide eight to 12 hours of programmes—not just news, as Lord Windlesham seemed to suggest, but also drama and everything else. I think I am right in saying that the noble Lord seems to think that all we want is news of the East Midlands.
The reaction of ATV to the suggestion by the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), myself and my colleagues in the East Midlands was to create an office in the centre of Nottingham with three reporters. It is an amazing and interesting fact that for over 20 years there has been a Midlands franchise based on Birmingham, the holders of which never thought of having an office in the East

Midlands until now. That office may improve news coverage, but will three reporters produce, for example, the works of D. H. Lawrence? Plays by D. H. Lawrence have been performed on the BBC, and adaptations of his novels have been shown on the independent channel. That was done, I believe, on the independent channel by Granada Television, a Lancashire company. ATV has adapted Arnold Bennett's novels.
There is a good technical reason for doing this. The good technical reason why ATV will always use something from the West Midlands if possible is that some 20 years ago, as one understands, ATV concluded arrangements with its trade unions that even I, as a member of the Labour Party, would suggest were not necessarily ideal arrangements from the point of view of the management of any organisation. One is told that—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will make it clearer to me how his argument is related to the amendment.

Mr. English: The point is that the East Midlands, which is one of the regions of the United Kingdom, is not provided with a television service because it is officially provided with a television service that happens to be based in the West Midlands. I was endeavouring to explain that this West Midlands or London-based company cannot provide very much in the way of services to the East Midlands. For example, if it wants to do any outside broadcasting there, under the nature of the arrangements that were made with the trade unions about 20 years ago, it costs so much more. It is, therefore, easier to produce "Clayhanger" or Arnold Bennett in the West Midlands, because the company does not have to send its camera teams to the East Midlands.
The result is simply that the East Midlands is not provided with what every other region has, namely, drama, news, current affairs or music from the East Midlands. We do not have the things that other regions possess. There is an intentional discrimination, which I think started in a reasonable way. I am not suggesting that 20-odd years ago there was not a tremendous rush. Once London had its television, Birmingham and the Midlands wanted television, and once


Birmingham had it there was a tremendous rush to have it in Lancashire and Yorkshire and Scotland. That is all perfectly natural.
But, in the course of that, people erected television masts and transmitters wherever they could. The result was that originally, instead of society being served by the machine it had developed, the machine, permanently instead of what should have been temporarily, dominated mankind. As a result of masts being erected on the Pennines, Lancashire and Yorkshire were united, which I as a Lancastrian—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would also have something to say—would argue is something that cannot be permanent.
In the last round of franchises, Lancashire and Yorkshire were split, as they should be, because they are not the same area, and erecting a television mast in the middle of the Pennines does not change that fact. Just because the Midlands area is relatively flat, it is possible to cover it with a few transmitters and relay stations. Just because of that, and after the old "Granadaland"—Lancashire and Yorkshire—had been divided, it became the largest region in terms of population. I believe I am right in saying that the region served by ATV is the biggest in population terms.
That has occurred because people erected transmitters in particular places—Sutton Coldfield, Waltham and so on. It has not occurred because the East and West Midlands were naturally one region. They have been different regions ever since the Danes conquered the East Midlands and did not conquer the West Midlands. Just because, from an engineering point of view, one can serve a particular area does not mean that one should.
I understand that the IBA's main priority now is to erect small, extra stations in parts of valleys and high mountain areas. Its main priority is not to change anything that was set up 20 or more years ago, even if it was discriminatory against a particular region. Its main priority is to fill in tiny gaps of a few thousand people, instead of serving the nearly 4 million people who live in the East Midlands and who at present have no service whatever.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I have a great deal of sympathy

with, and rather support, the tenor of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Is he complaining that the service which is received by the people in the East Midlands is technically inferior in the sense that the signal sent out is less clear, or is he, as I suspect, suggesting with some evidence that the reporting carried out by the news service of the Midlands television is discriminatory in the sense that it does not cover the news of the East Midlands as effectively as it does in the West Midlands, for the simple reason that it is more expensive to go out from Birmingham into the East Midlands area than into the West Midlands area? Is it the inferiority of the signal or the poor news reporting and drama production of which he complains?

Mr. English: It is a combination, but I was talking primarily about engineering. About 18 months ago, when the hon. Member for Beeston and myself started this, it could be said that there was no reporting at all in the East Midlands. But since we did start this, and since nearly all our 44 East Midlands colleagues on both sides of the House supported us, ATV has reacted by opening an office in Nottingham which has three reporters. My hon. Friends and I will have a closer look at this in a few weeks, subject to other events, but, as I understand it, for the moment, the Nottingham office has three reporters but no electronic equipment or cameramen. In that respect it is not like the BBC. For example, on Derby Road, Nottingham, the BBC has a full colour studio which can be used by anyone in the East Midlands for any purpose that is relevant.
As to the signal, it is a peculiar fact that the signal from Waltham transmitter can be received by 90 per cent. of the population of Derby and by only 80 per cent. of the population of Nottingham. But the population of Nottingham normally looks at those programmes, whereas the population of Derby is normally forced to look at programmes transmitted from Sutton Coldfield because for various reasons the signal from Waltham is not as good in Derby as it is in Nottingham. The strange thing is that the coverage in Derby is greater and the signal strength weaker, whereas the coverage in Nottingham is less, although the signal strength is greater. There are various technical problems involved.
The point I make in the amendment is that the technical problem involved basically boils down to money. Clearly, if one wishes, one can provide a service for any region of the country, but one should not allow machinery—in this case, television transmitters—to dominate the society in which we live. It was futile to attempt to unite Lancashire and Yorkshire, and in television terms that has now ceased to exist. It is equally futile to attempt to unite the East and West Midlands. The BBC used to unite the East Midlands, West Midlands and East Anglia. In "Broadcasting in the Seventies", the BBC specifically said that East Anglia would become a separate BBC region and the next priority was to split the East and West Midlands. I have consulted the BBC and it still adheres to this. I would be ruled out of order if I went on about the BBC, but our principles are not only related to one channel. I want to make that plain. We want the BBC region divided just as we want the ITV region divided.
What we want is perfectly simple. We want the same rights for the East Midlands as every other region of the United Kingdom has. We do not want to be discriminated against. We do not want all our programmes made either somewhere outside the Midlands region or in Birmingham, which is outside the East Midlands region. That would be quite easy to do. Undoubtedly, we would like this done on the fourth channel, but we would also like it done on what one might call the second channel as well. We simply want to be treated equally with everyone else, and we have a right to be so treated.
If one looks at the Kilbrandon report, one will find that, if one measures public expenditure against taxation, the East Midlands region provides more public taxation for the public expenditure that it gets than any other region of the United Kingdom. Demographically, it is the region that is growing most rapidly with young people. The East Midlands is one of the regions of the United Kingdom which is not a problem—

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: There are others.

Mr. English: There are others. It is one of the regions that does not have to be propped up by the taxpayer. If every other region of the United Kingdom

was like the East Midlands, our country's industrial and economic performance would be far better than it is. In such circumstances, the people of the East Midlands have a right to look at their television screens and see a few things—say, eight to 12 hours—produced in the East Midlands, instead of programmes that are produced in London, in Birmingham or by other people who do not support or run the East Midlands.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: This is one of those days when, for a variety of reasons outside the Chamber, most of us will probably wish to be uncharacteristically brief. I want to comment on two aspects of this matter, and perhaps the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) will help me on one point.
In his amendment, the hon. Gentleman has referred to regions as defined by statistical news, and one of the difficulties I have always been in since I was engaged in regional policy at the Department of the Environment is to know what a region is. Perhaps he could help me by telling me at this stage precisely what he means by "the East Midlands area". I ask this because I have an interest—not a personal but a constituency interest—in the success of Anglia Television, which is seen in parts of what I call the East Midlands. Perhaps he would let me know where, in his mind, the demarcation is.

Mr. English: The reason for this peculiar definition is that I was told that my amendment would be out of order because the draftsmen would say that they did not know what a region was. Having been trained in the law, I understand the technical legal comment, "I do not know what a region is unless you define it", so I promptly produced a definition.
The standard region is Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, and it is in the last that the hon. Gentleman is interested. But I was very careful in my earlier remarks not to suggest that anybody could conceivably, from an engineering point of view, produce from transmitters a visual area that exactly corresponded to county boundaries. Nobody but a fool could think that. What we are mainly concerned with is where the


population of the East Midlands lies, which is in the three counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
I quite understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, and we are mainly concerned that there should be a television company in the East Midlands. Scottish Television does not serve all Scotland and companies in various other areas do not serve precisely the whole region, but at least each region has one. We have not.

Mr. Griffiths: It seems to me that the point is this. There are various regions in this country for the supply of electricity and water and for television purposes, but the region that appears to count most of all is that which is ordained by the Order Office of the House of Commons for the purposes of amendment.
My first point is made in support of the hon. Gentleman, because I frequently go to the East Midlands. I think it is one of the most lively, most vital and, certainly economically and industrially, most successful areas of our country, and it is unfortunate and a shame that it does not have a television service of its own emanating from that area and able to report perhaps more effectively than is possible from Birmingham the very many things that happen in the social, industrial, economic and agricultural life of the area.
I should like to give one example, which I hope the Minister will take into account. Last Sunday there was held in Nottingham the first round of a series of games for the selection of a team of mentally handicapped athletes to compete in special Olympics in New York in the summer. I declare an interest because I am the chairman of the group that is selecting those athletes. It was of some importance, not least for fund-raising purposes, and because of the need to demonstrate that the mentally handicapped can compete in sport, to make sure that those games were well known to the people of the Midlands area. Nottingham was very hospitable in every sense.
I found it remarkable that the BBC covered those games very well, and it did so, I suspect, because it is conscious of the East Midlands as an area where there is news to be reported and viewers

to be cared for. But, while I make no criticism of the independent television service, perhaps because it was a Sunday, because there is such a thing as overtime, because it would have had to come from Birmingham, it found it very much more difficult to cover those games and did not do so.
I think this rather underlines the point which the hon. Gentleman has made. There are many reasons why a television service at any one point may not cover an event. We do not always agree on what is news, and I certainly would not wish to pre-empt the news judgment of the editor of ATV in these matters. But it was conspicuous that there was a greater ability and willingness on the part of the BBC to cover the East Midlands than there was on the part of ATV, and I cannot help believing that it was in part because ATV is much more Birmingham-oriented, West Midlands-centred, than is the BBC, which over a period of years has hoisted in the hon. Gentleman's point. So I agree very much with him on that.
The second point I wish to make, and it is really in support of the amendment, is that the signal of the Anglia Television system comes into what is broadly called the East Midlands area, however it be defined, and I think it is very welcome. True, it does not go into the heartland of the East Midlands, of Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire, but it is received widely in Northamptonshire and indeed, as the hon. Member well knows, in Lincolnshire, which has an agricultural and regional commonality with the Anglian area.
I very much emphasise to the Minister that nothing should be done in this Bill or in any other way that would, in the words of the amendment, "discriminate against" the very successful activities of Anglia Television.

Mr. English: I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene a second time. I think he is aware that, although it is not what we are advocating, if our television service were run from Norwich, which is the centre of a region nearly the same size, in population terms, as the East Midlands, we would have much less complaint than we do when we are dominated from Birmingham, which has two-thirds of the population of the whole of the Midlands.
Secondly, I entirely accept that there are fringe areas, like Lincolnshire, the second most sparsely populated county in the United Kingdom—in which my wife's mother and father live—where they are fortunate enough to be able to get Yorkshire, Anglia and ATV. The trouble is that the bulk of the population of the East Midlands is not in that situation; they are forced to have the "Crossroads" Birmingham-oriented ATV.

Mr. Griffiths: I understand the hon. Gentleman. Those who are fortunate enough to live in the area of overlap have a wider range of choice than those who do not, but sometimes the consequence of overlap is a blurring of the signal, so that while one has a wider range of choice none of the services received is anywhere near as clear. Therefore it is not an untrammelled advantage. There is inevitably an area of overlap between one television area and another. This is no bad thing, but the crucial point—and this is where I strongly support the amendment—is that nothing should be done by the broadcasting authorities, and certainly nothing should be done as a consequence of this Bill, which would permit some areas to be put at a new disadvantage as compared with others and as compared with the present situation.
I seek only one assurance from the Minister, and I am sure she will be able to give it: that when the House comes, as I believe it will, to give authority to the IBA to provide these new facilities—we are talking not of a service but merely of the infrastructure that will allow a future service to be put in, and indeed I suspect it will be the service which this side of the House prefers and not the service which the Government have rather foolishly suggested, in my opinion—I want to be quite certain that the IBA will recognise that in some parts of the country we have contented customers.
The vast majority of viewers in Suffolk, Norfolk, North Essex, Cambridgeshire and most of Lincolnshire receive from Norwich, whether through the BBC or Anglia Television, a good signal. They receive a good, newsy, interesting service, although it can of course be improved. I want to make sure that nothing is done to limit, discriminate against, or make more difficult the task of, the existing service.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the spirit of what the hon. Member for Nottingham, West said even though, for technical reasons, we know that it is difficult to add to the Bill an amendment in that form of words.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), with the mover of the motion, and with my hon. Friend the Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), whose name lies alongside his, in their desire to have a new region established in the Midlands. We in Wales are fortunate in that we are a region in ourselves and that a specific Government proposal for the new service to Wales is referred to in clause 1.

Mr. English: We are a region, and always have been. The boundaries were slightly changed when the county boundaries were altered, but we always have been a separate region. Our difference is not that we are not a region but that we are the only region without a separate television service.

Mr. Roberts: I understand that, and I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's feelings.
The Government have specific proposals for the fourth channel in Wales. The hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas) rather misled the House during the Second Reading debate on the Bill when he said:
the Conservative opposition have no proposals for Wales whatever." —[Official Report, 6 March 1979; Vol. 963, c. 1138.]
We made our position absolutely clear in the debate on 23 May 1977, and we have not budged from that position. I hope that the Committee will not think it vain of me to quote myself, but I feel obliged to do so. In that debate I said:
The non-Welsh-speaking majority of viewers and the Welsh-speaking minority both want the Welsh language programmes placed in a separate channel.
That is the channel referred to in clause 1. I went on to point out Annan's regret if all Welsh programmes were banished to the fourth channel, and I said:
I suggest that the proper solution is for both BBC and HTV Welsh programmes to be transmitted on the fourth channel under the control of the IBA and for the BBC to continue transmitting selected programmes on its main Welsh channel and thus maintain the Welsh language presence on that channel in accordance with the Annan recommendation."—[Official Report, 23 May 1977; Vol. 932, c. 1083.]


I went on to explain the position further. The hon. Member for Merioneth could have seen most of my quotation from Hansard incorporated in the Conservative campaign guide, which is our recognised "bible" of policy and available to all and sundry in the Library. Be that as it may, I read the hon. Gentleman's speech with great care and I take it into account as I expand on our ideas for the fourth channel in Wales under the auspices of the IBA.
4.45 p.m.
What the Government propose by way of a Welsh language service in the White Paper, which we shall be discussing later, differs fundamentally from our proposal only in so far as we propose to make the IBA responsible while the Government propose to make the OBA the responsible body. I do not see that it makes a blind bit of difference to the viewer which authority is responsible. He is concerned only about the programmes presented for his viewing.
It should not make any difference to the broadcasters either, but they have been making noises behind the scenes and their points of view are well represented in the Home Office report of the working party on the Welsh television fourth channel project. The BBC is reluctant to show its programmes under an IBA banner, but I believe that reluctance will have to be overcome. After all, under the Government scheme it will be showing its programmes under the OBA flag and those programmes will be transmitted from IBA-controlled transmitters erected under clause 1. The BBC programmes can be clearly identified as BBC productions when shown on the fourth channel in Wales.
As for the IBA and the Welsh contractor, it is understandable that they should argue that, in the event of their being given the fourth channel in Wales, they should be on a par with the BBC there, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, they should have to carry only their own Welsh language programmes on the fourth channel, and the BBC should continue to transmit its programmes on BBC Wales or BBC 2.
I say to the broadcasters that they should put the interests of the Welsh-speaking viewer first and foremost, that they must get together to provide a continuous daily service of Welsh language

programmes on the fourth channel from about 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. If this daily service were to be expanded by as much as half an hour, which would take it until 7.30 p.m., the initial target of 25 hours a week of Welsh language broadcasting would be very nearly achieved.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) should be talking about the provision of broadcasting equipment. Perhaps he could relate what he is saying to clause 1.

Mr. Roberts: Clause 1 provides for the establishment of a service which in Wales is already allocated to a fourth channel Welsh service. The position in Wales is rather different from the position in England. Nevertheless, Wales is a region, and we would argue that any failure to carry out the promise to establish a Welsh fourth channel service would be discriminatory against television in Wales, and, of course, the amendment refers to discrimination. I think, Mr. Godman Irvine, with due respect, that brief as I shall be, I shall nevertheless be in order in talking about the region of Wales and non-discrimination there.

The Second Deputy Chairman: As long as the hon. Gentleman talks about equipment.

Mr. Roberts: By "equipment" is meant here the provision of aerials and transmitting equipment, which in turn implies a service. Clause 1 talks about the provision of a service. With due respect, I do not think that one can talk about equipment purely and simply, especially in view of the speeches that preceded mine, without talking about a service. I am talking about the service that is proposed for the fourth channel in Wales, that service being provided by the equipment referred to by you, Mr. Godman Irvine.
I place emphasis on the early evening hours. That is the time when children are watching. It is with them very much in mind, and for them, that the service should be provided, although there would be provision for adults in news and current affairs and other programming appropriate to the time of day.
The Government propose a Welsh Language Television Council, consisting of representatives of the broadcasting organisations in Wales with a chairman


drawn from the OBA. Under our scheme, it will be necessary to have a close practical liaison committee of the existing broadcasting organisations, probably with an independent executive chairman whose first concern will be a Welsh language service provided under clause 1. This working committee may need to be backed by selected members of the committees already serving the broadcasting media in Wales. This machinery would be similar to the proposed Welsh Language Council.
Where is the advantage for Wales in the scheme that we, on this side, have proposed? It is partly financial and partly organisational. Just as the IBA is providing the transmitters and the equipment for this fourth channel service in Wales, so it will implement the Welsh language service in conjunction with the programme contractor and the BBC. We would maintain that the OBA is superfluous in this context.
Wales will lose part of the second ITV service. But it will lose part of the OBA service under the Government proposals, as is readily admitted in the White Paper. On the question of the number of hours broadcast, there is a danger that we emphasise quantity at the expense of quality. New ideas do not grow on trees. There is a difference between a string of programmes and a proper unified service. It is the latter that Welsh-speaking people want. They want continuous viewing of Welsh programmes presented in Welsh, and Welsh in spirit. I firmly believe that this service can be provided largely from existing resources, although the BBC may need extra support for additional programmes.
I know that this debate began in the Midlands, but it has moved on to Wales, which is another region. I hasten to assure you, Mr. Godman Irvine, that we have advanced further in Wales than in England in the use of the fourth channel. We have moved from the stage when we are talking about equipment to the stage where we are talking very much about programming.

Mr. Julian Critchley: If we might move swiftly back from Wales to the Midlands, I suppose that all IBA regions are a matter of masts and money but, more particularly, they are a matter

for the IBA and not for the House. An opt-out system has been suggested for the East Midlands. The special links that would be necessary, in engineering terms, for such a system would have to be carried out, in the first place, by the Post Office. If this work was given to the Post Office and not to the IBA, I understand that it would not be completed for 18 months.
But is is common sense that an opt-out system should be provided so that East Midlands programmes can be shown only to people within the East Midlands. The system should be provided before the franchises are changed, if, indeed, they are, and the new contracts announced.

Mr. English: I recognise that ATV's proposal, as expressed by Lord Windlesham in last week's UK Press Gazette, is at least an attempt, after 20 years, to show willing. It is not enough. The average opt-out is about two and a half hours a week, half an hour a day, possibly involving a magazine programme or similar type programme. But that is not what we want.
The technical problem lies in providing any service at all, or a greater service. It is nothing that greatly involves either the IBA or the Post Office. I am reliably informed that all transmitters in this country are provided by a well known Dutch company called Philips.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): Discussion on this amendment has ranged more widely than I believed it could. That is saying quite a lot. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) appeared to use the amendments to state his well-known argument for an independent television service for the East Midlands. We are all well aware that this is his desire. He has stated it fully and eloquently on previous occasions.
I am sure that the IBA is aware of his wish. I believe that he has recently met the Authority to express his concern. The Authority must now be considering his proposal carefully.
The IBA has issued a statement about its initial work towards the granting of new franchises. A good deal of consultation with the public will be involved. My hon. Friend's views will obviously be considered important in this matter. My hon.


Friend has urged the establishment of a separate franchise area for the East Midlands—

Mr. English: I do not wish to take as much credit as my hon. Friend seems to want to give me. I hope she realises that only about four or five of the 44 Members of Parliament representing the East Midlands take a different view from the view I was endeavouring to express. All five county councils in the East Midlands take the same view as myself, as do nearly all the district councils. In other words, to be blunt, nearly every elected representative of nearly 4 million people, in addition to all the chambers of commerce of the counties and cities, except the Lincolnshire chamber of commerce in whose area, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) explained, three services can be received, take the same view. We do not simply want a separate television company. We want a separate service provided by the BBC and ITV. How it is provided has nothing to do with us. None of us has any financial interest.

Dr. Summerskill: I appreciate that there is great concern in my hon. Friend's area, even if that concern is not shared by all his parliamentary colleagues.

Mr. English: About four out of 44.

Dr. Summerskill: Four MPs are four MPs. Their views deserve some recognition. I am sure that the IBA is well aware of the numerical breakdown of who supports this proposal and who does not, and that it is aware of my hon. Friend's strong interest in the matter. The IBA issued a statement last month about its intentions on the granting of television contracts from 1982 onwards, subject to the provisions of any legislation Parliament may approve on the future of broadcasting. The current pattern of ITV franchise areas has been influenced partly by the coverage capability of the VHF transmitters which provided the earlier monochrome transmissions in 405-line definition. In determining what changes, if any, shall be made, the IBA will need to take account of technical constraints no less than the considerations, mentioned by my hon. Friend, of social identity and financial viability. The present ATV Midlands area is a large one. My hon. Friend was

present when I said in a previous speech that it has the largest potential audience of any of the ITV companies outside London.
5.0 p.m.
The proposal to remove the East Midlands from ATV would involve hiving off Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and perhaps the reallocation of Lincolnshire, from the franchise areas served by Yorkshire Television and Anglia Television. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, who has left the Chamber, mentioned his interest in Anglia Television.
The present Waltham transmitter used by ATV could provide a service to about 1·35 million viewers. A number of detailed technical considerations would need to be studied involving other transmitters serving part of the current franchise areas of Yorkshire Television and Anglia Television. These include the need to avoid any adverse effects on coverage elsewhere if there were to be any adjustment of the existing areas.
I am sure that these arguments are familiar to my hon. Friend. He knows that franchise areas are matters for the IBA and not for putting in the Bill. We cannot meet my hon. Friend's wishes by means of the Bill. However, I am sure that the IBA will be aware of the arguments that he has advanced.
The hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) advanced an argument that I understand is official Conservative policy for Welsh television, according to the Western Mail, which has given it great prominence. The Conservative Party plans to give the fourth channel to ITV, full stop. Obviously the hon. Gentleman has taken advantage of these proceedings in Committee to amplify his party's policy for Wales. Even if we wanted to, we would not be able by means of the amendment to determine the handing over of a fourth channel to ITV. That is irrelevant to the amendment. However, as the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue, I repeat yet again—we have had many broadcasting debates and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said what I am about to say on many occasions—that it is the Government's intention to introduce the fourth television channel in Wales, giving priority to a service in the Welsh language in the autumn of 1982.
The present Bill gives the IBA the power to start engineering the fourth channel. The Authority has already indicated that it will give priority to engineering the fourth channel in Wales. It is our intention to establish an Open Broadcasting Authority and to deal with that in our major broadcasting legislation.
If we secure parliamentary approval for both the Bills, there is no basis for supposing that the Government's commitment to the Welsh people for a Welsh fourth television channel cannot be implemented in the autumn of 1982. I hope that the Western Mail gives those remarks as much prominence tomorrow morning as it has given to the hon. Gentleman's statements on Conservative Party plans.
I return to the amendment—

Mr. English: Hear, hear.

Dr. Summerskill: I have been answering the elaborate points made by my hon. Friend in moving the amendment.
The Bill is concerned only with essential preliminary engineering work for the fourth channel service. Under the Government's proposals in chapter 3 of the White Paper on broadcasting, the provision of that service will be a matter not for the Open Broadcasting Authority but for the IBA.

Mr. English: Before we reach the possibly contentious issue of the Open Broadcasting Authority, with which, I stress, my amendment does not deal, does my hon. Friend realise that we are continually told that the reason why we do not have a separate television service in the East Midlands is because certain engineering work was done almost a quarter of a century ago? She says that the Bill is only about undertaking engineering work. Whoever runs the service may be told in 25 years' time that it is suffering from the engineering for which we made provision in the Bill. From past experience, that must be what is likely to happen.
My hon. Friend began by mentioning engineering technicalities. Why has a study not been made of how the East Midlands could be provided, from an engineering point of view, with a separate television service? The hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) and I have consulted

several engineers of various persuasions. We are told that no study has been undertaken. After 25 years it is surely time for such a study. My hon. Friend says "This is why it cannot be done". Will she order the IBA to assess the facts? Surely that is within the powers of the Home Secretary. My right hon. Friend has the power to ask the IBA to check on the relevant facts.

Dr. Summerskill: I am sure that my hon. Friend has put all these matters to the IBA. They do not relate to the amendment. The amendment is concerned with setting up preliminary engineering work for the fourth channel. There can be no question of discrimination against an area or region. Apart from Wales, the service to be provided will be transmitted as a single service throughout the United Kingdom. That will include the areas of every hon. Member except for those representing Welsh constituencies.
For the reasons that I have given, I cannot accept my hon. Friend's amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. English: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 3, at end insert
'commencing with those areas which at present have no such studios'.
The Government's reply and the Opposition's response to the previous amendment—this is a somewhat all-party occasion—were effectively to say that we do not mind if certain regions are discriminated against. It is to that approach that the people of the East Midlands object.
After an earlier debate to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State referred, there was a somewhat acrimonious correspondence between Lord Windlesham and myself, in which he accused me of saying that the ATV premises in Nottingham are offices rather than production facilities. I said no such thing. I said that they had no electronics for any practical purpose.
It may be that ultimately ATV will introduce facilities in Nottingham of the sort that were introduced long ago by the BBC. Before the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) and I referred to the


non-existence of any facilities in Nottingham, there was nothing. There was a BBC studio that originally could handle only black and white material. It can now handle colour material and is a fully competent studio. However, there was no ATV studio.
There is now behind the Theatre Royal what I described as an office but which is described by itself as a studio. That is in the middle of Nottingham. From those premises three reporters work. Nor did I say in the previous debate that they do not. However, Lord Windlesham asked me to make it plain that three reporters work from the premises in Nottingham.
The hon. Member for Beeston and I anticipated visiting the ATV premises on 20 April but it now seems unlikely that we shall be able to go. We want to know whether it is possible for colour broadcasting to be undertaken at those premises. As I understand it, for whatever reasons, perhaps disagreements with trade unions or lack of equipment, it is not possible. Whatever it calls itself, it is not a studio in the sense that the BBC has a studio in Derby Road, Nottingham.
We come back to the question of discrimination which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary loves so much. If we are to have the new service required by this Bill—studios are particularly mentioned in the Bill—may we please start with areas which do not have a studio? May we at least see that the services provided by the Independent Broadcasting Authority are not less than those provided by the BBC in the East Midlands? if as much were provided by the Independent Broadcasting Authority as is provided by the BBC in the East Midlands, that would be a start. At the moment it does not provide, in the precise terms of the Bill, the equipment and other essentials that are need for a proper television service.

Mr. John Farr: I want to make it quite clear that the views expressed by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) are by no means shared by all hon. Members from the East Midlands. Many of us further south in the Leicester area say that, as there is already a fully operational colour BBC studio in Nottingham, if there

is to be any change from Birmingham—and many of us do not want a change—we can see no reason why the IBA studio should also be centred on Nottingham.
My purpose in speaking is to confirm that a number of us in the East Midlands are quite happy with the service which ATV provides. Many of us in the southeastern corner of the East Midlands are more than happy because we are on the fringe of ATV and Anglia and we get a first-class service from both. I say this to put the record straight.

Mr. English: I fully explained that a minority of hon. Members take the view just expressed by the hon. Gentleman, although it is a small minority. I did not choose that there should be a studio or office in Nottingham, nor did the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester). We did not choose, either, that there should be no ATV studio or office anywhere in the East Midlands in the previous two decades. It was ATV, after a majority protest by hon. Members, which decided to put its studio, office, or whatever it may be, in Nottingham. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that there should be another studio in Leicester, I agree with him. There is a shortage.

Mr. Farr: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He went into such detail about whether the studio should be in Nottingham—I know Nottingham very well—saying there was a suitable site here and the lack of a site there, that I thought that he was suggesting that Nottingham should be considered to the exclusion of anywhere else.
Many of us are happy with the existing set-up. It is difficult if one wants to take part in an ATV programme from Pebble Mill to go from Leicester to Birmingham. But it is as convenient to go from Leicester to Birmingham as to go from Leicester to Nottingham. It would make more sense if there were alternative studios in Leicester. Most of the letters I have received from constituents have been in favour of the existing ATV and Anglia regions service with which we are well satisfied.

Dr. Summerskill: I feel that this amendment is not relevant to the Bill. The Bill is specifically intended to enable the IBA—

Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. This is a direct accusation against the Chair. The relevance of this amendment is shown by the fact that it was in order and selected by the Chair. My hon. Friend should realise that when she suggests that it is not relevant, she makes an accusation that she should not have made.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I am sure that the hon. Lady has taken all these matters into consideration.

Dr. Summerskill: The Bill is specifically intended to enable the IBA to finance and undertake the provision of all the necessary facilities to enable a fourth programme service to be broadcast. Since there are, as yet, no studios anywhere which are equipped specifically for the televised broadcasting of the fourth channel service, the proposed amendment would seem, on that basis, to be superfluous.
There is a deeper concern in that the amendment seems to imply that the service will be provided on an area basis. It would be inappropriate to include in this Bill anything which may pre-empt the decisions of the Open Broadcasting Authority which the Government propose to set up to supervise the fourth channel programme, taking account of such duties, functions and guidelines as may be included in the major broadcasting legislation which is still to be brought before the House. Therefore, if the amendment is not irrelevant, it is superfluous.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Financial Provisions

Mr. English: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 27, at end insert:
'provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorise anyone to contravene section 29(1) of the Act of 1973'.
At this late hour, when there is other business to come, the House will not wish me to go into the details of this amendment. The hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) and I have been in correspondence with Sir Brian Young of the

Independent Broadcasting Authority. The hon. Lady will recall that during the previous debate I was distinctly critical of the fact that the Second Reading of this Bill took place one day before the accounts of the IBA were published. I regarded that, in the proper sense of the word, as opposed to the financial sense, as corruption on somebody's part. I do not accuse the IBA of determining the business of the House. That business was determined for other reasons and in other ways. But the fact that those accounts were nearly 12 months late is inefficient.
5.15 p.m.
Sir Brian Young tells me that this is inaccurate and unfair. It is not inaccurate, because there is tremendous inefficiency in any organisation the accounts of which are 12 months late. Great multinational companies, oil companies and conglomerates can produce their accounts, from all over the world, in three months.
I am told by the Home Secretary that the draft accounts of the IBA reached him on 6 December, so not all of the delay was caused by the broadcasting authority. Some part of the delay seems to have been on the part of the Home Office and I do not understand why that should be. The cause of the trouble is section 29(1) of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 1973. The section seems to provide that the IBA should apply any surplus in specific funds, as directed by the Minister, now the Home Secretary
with the approval of the Treasury after consultation with the Chairman or in his absence the Deputy Chairman of the Authority.…
There is no provision in section 29 that everybody must await such a direction before the publication of accounts.
The Secretary of State has said that he will always consider it his duty to issue a direction. That is fine. We suggest that he does that on 1 April each year. Is the IBA's accounting system so poor that it does not know just before the end of the year whether it is going to have a surplus? The Secretary of State and his officials should discuss the matter with the [BA before the end of the financial year. That would mean that they need not spend their time after the year end discussing what is to happen to a surplus.
There is inefficiency. Apparently I was wrong to say that it is wholly the IBA's


fault. It is the fault both of the IBA and of the Home Office. May we have an assurance that this will not happen again and that within three months—a reasonable time by private industry standards—the IBA accounts will be published? Let Ministers and officials have their discussions, but we should not delay the public's knowledge of the Authority's financial proceedings.

Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do now leave the Chair—[Mr. Joseph Dean]—put and agreed to.

THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

Orders of the Day — REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do 110W adjourn.—[Mr. Joseph Dean.]

5.22 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I shall, with permission. Mr. Speaker, make a statement about the Government's proposal for a short Bill about the holding of the parliamentary general election on Thursday 3 May, the day fixed by the Local Government Act 1972 for elections to district and parish or community councils in England, outside London and Wales.
The Government are giving notice today of the introduction of a Bill which will be published and available tomorrow. The Bill will make provision to defer the parish or community council elections for three weeks, to Thursday 24 May, and will permit the additional costs attributable to the postponement to be met by the Exchequer. The Bill will also make a number of changes to assist the conduct of the parliamentary and the district council elections on the same day.
The same polling stations will be used for both elections. They will be stations normally used for parliamentary elections.
Ballot papers for both elections will be placed in the same boxes in the same polling booth. Extra boxes will be available for particular areas if they are required. The hours of polling for local government elections will be extended so that they will be the same as for parliamentary elections—from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. New notes of guidance to voters will be prepared, to make the procedures absolutely clear to them.
The ballot papers for each election will be easily distinguishable and the Bill, if enacted, will enable me to give directions about the means for achieving this. I shall inform the House on Monday of how I propose this should be achieved. In any case, the parliamentary ballot paper will retain its traditional colour, shape and form with the addition of the words "Parliamentary Election" and "You may vote for no more than one candidate" at the top of each ballot


paper. In Wales, the same statement will appear also in Welsh.
At the close of the poll, all ballot papers will be sent to the parliamentary returning officer. He will separate the ballots as between the two elections. He will then count the parliamentary ballot papers and send the district council papers to the appropriate returning officer. The same officer will deal with postal voting applications for both elections. The Bill will not otherwise alter the postal voting position in either election.
These provisions should ensure that there will be no obstacle in the way of combined elections being conducted in an orderly and efficient manner on 3 May, and I shall be seeking the approval of the House of Commons on Monday for a Bill on these lines.

Mr. William Whitelaw: Does the Home Secretary appreciate that obviously there will be anxieties about the risks of confusion in this arrangement? Will he, therefore, explain whether it would have been possible to postpone the district council elections, as he has the parish council elections, to a later date? Will be also explain the implications of such a postponement?

Mr. Rees: The right hon. Member asked about postponing the district council elections. Today is the day on which the local elections get under way. A great deal of money has been spent by the political parties on the local elections. The Government's view is that it would be wrong to postpone the local government elections, for that reason.

Mr. Tom Ellis: Will my right hon. Friend accept that this is a thoroughly practical solution which is in the best interests of the electors? Is he aware that many hon. Members believe that it would be disastrous to have a local election a few days after a general election? Is he aware that, subject to the detailed provisions in the Bill, many of us believe that this is a good idea and suspect that Opposition Members have a vested political interest in holding the local elections on a different day because they believe that the turnout would be low? I am sure that this proposition will be acceptable in the country. If all the information is distributed, there should be no difficulties.

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We shall have to wait for Monday to see whether there are any objections on the Floor of the House. The Government's view is that this is the best way to deal with the situation.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I appreciate that the Bill does not specifically apply to Greater London, where there are no local elections this year, but what happens to by-elections which could fall on 3 May in Greater London? In general, will the Home Secretary give guidance to returning officers to the effect that they should not use the two lots of counting and separating as an excuse to postpone the counting of the parliamentary vote on the night?

Mr. Rees: I shall certainly do that. A by-election on the same day would not be new. There have been cases when there has been a local election on the same day. There cannot have been many, but I do not think that there is a problem.
The hon. Member asked about the count. I have thoughts about distinguishing the district council elections. The votes will be taken to the parliamentary count, where they will be separated and verified. That means that there will be a delay. But that is the only delay to the parliamentary elections.
In urban areas the count for the district elections will probably be in the same place or nearby. In some of the rural areas the votes will have to be transported a longer distance. It is up to the local areas to decide whether to count the district council votes that night or to postpone the count to the following day.

Mr. Joan Evans: Is my right Hon. Friend aware that there will be general agreement on this satisfactory proposal? Does he agree that it is far better than having one election in one week and bringing the people out to vote in another election the following week? Will be explain to the Opposition that, if we had not been defeated last night, we could have waited a little longer? Will be consider an Opposition amendment to have the general election on 7 June?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If the election had been on 7 June we would have put a similar Bill before the House. It is my job—like a


boy scout—to be prepared. I had thought that there could be an election on 7 June. That is why last night I moved with a certain amount of alacrity on the matter, which is the way of the Home Office.

Mr. Philip Holland: Is the Home Secretary aware that in rural constituencies, for example, in my own constituency and, I suspect, in many others, there are not only borough council elections on that Thursday but also parish council elections? [Interruption.]

Mr. Rees: I understand why the hon. Gentleman was not present for my statement, because of the nature of the announcement. The parish council elections are to be postponed for three weeks. We do not know how many elections will be held—I am told that there are about 8,000. In many parish councils and community councils there are many unopposed returns. We shall pay for that centrally, which shows the mood of largesse which has hit us in the Home Office—on top of our speed.

Mr. Michael Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are frequently great pressures on urban polling stations in general elections? Is he giving advice to returning officers to provide for more staff and ballot boxes, to which he has already referred, so that the congestion caused by the delay of filling in two papers is allowed for?

Mr. Rees: That will be done. A great deal of discussion has taken place already, and that is proper, because it is right that the office should talk with the AROs. We shall have surplus boxes available if they are needed.

Mr. David Crouch: Is the Home Secretary aware that there are precedents in the matter, established by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald on 9 October 1924? On that day, he came into the House—I have a copy of Hansard for that day—to announce the Dissolution of Parliament and the date of the nomination and polling days before any other announcement was made. He was at some pains to ensure that there would be no inconvenience caused on the election day by confusing the general election with the municipal elections. He said:
The Government were very anxious to reduce the inconvenience of the Election to a minimum. By a careful study of the position, we have found that it will be possible to

have the Election over before the municipal elections take place."—[Official Report, 9 October 1924; Vol. 177, c. 731.]
He announced the Dissolution of Parliament and the date of the election on that day. Therefore, there are precedents in the matter to avoid confusion.

Mr. Rees: There may well be precedents. In the election of 1931 I cycled around in opposition to Mr. Ramsey MacDonald. I thought he was wrong then and I think that he was wrong now.

Mr. Max Madden: I hope that the Home Secretary will accept that the vast majority of voters in 1979 will find the arrangements that he has announced to be of the greatest convenience. Will the Home Secretary say what steps are being taken to distinguish between the two ballot papers? Secondly, can he say what difference there will be in the provisions for postal votes? Lastly, in view of the fact that the parish council elections have been deferred, will be take the opportunity to introduce postal voting provisions for parish councils? That would be much appreciated by electors in rural areas.

Mr. Rees: I cannot say at the moment that we can take such steps to deal with parish council elections. The postal votes for the district council elections will be on the same date as the Westminster election, which will be an extension. I shall try to indicate to the House on Monday the sort of ideas that I have in mind. The district council election ballot papers will need to be different. There will need to be firm colouring at the edges. I shall try to get an example printed over the weekend so that right hon. and hon. Members who wish to see what we have in mind can make their judgments upon it.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Is it the Home Secretary's intention that counts should take place in the same premises? Does he visualise that there will be enough checkers for the counts?

Mr. Rees: I do not think that there will be a problem. The count for the general election will take place in the normal fashion after separation and verification. The Westminster elections will take precedence and then it is up to the local AROs to decide whether they will


go on with the count for the district council elections after that or delay them until the following day. There are some local areas that like to be first in counting. Those that are in England and Wales will be at a disadvantage compared with London and Scotland, which will be first on the television.

Mr. George Cunningham: The Home Secretary will remember the question of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) which was just not reached this afternoon. That question asked about disadvantage arising from the practice whereby people can register simultaneously on two different registers. In the curious circumstances on 3 May, presumably it will be possible for a person who is registered on two different registers to vote in one area for the Westminster election and in a different area for the other election if it suits his political leaning. Will the Home Secretary say whether that will be permissible?

Mr. Rees: Many hon. Members are registered in two places. What matters is that a person can only vote in one parliamentary election. I have to make the choice whether to vote in London or in my own constituency. The House will know the choice when I make it.

Mr. Peter Emery: The House is grateful to the Home Secretary for making the statement at short notice. It was noticeable that he was willing to accede to that when he was being defended by the Leader of the House, who, perhaps, was not willing for the statement to be made today. Will the Home Secretary try to see whether, in order to speed the count, the separation and the verification, returning officers may recruit bank clerks who are used to dealing with counting? Secondly, will be try to ensure that the police are recruited to bring the ballot boxes to central areas as quickly as possible, in order that there should not be any delay?

Mr. Rees: Local returning officers can use such assistance as they wish. In many areas, sixth formers are used and I do not think that there is a problem in the matter. The hon. Gentleman can take it as read that the county forces, in this instance, will do what they often do to make sure that boxes are taken to the count in safety.

Mr. Gerry Fowler: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there may be special problems in rural constituencies or partly rural constituencies where it is normal to conduct the count in a parliamentary election the following day? Is it true that the law provides that the count in a district council election must begin at 9 a.m. after the day of poll? Further, is it true that the separation of ballot papers counts as the beginning of the count in the district council elections so that there is no need to make special provision for that in the Bill?

Mr. Rees: I am not sure. Off the top of my head, I do not believe that the premise on which my hon. Friend has made his remark is correct. However, I shall check the matter carefully before the Bill is debated on Monday.

Mr. David Price: Is the Home Secretary aware of the problem which arises from the fact that different returning officers are responsible for the parliamentary elections and the local elections? Part of my constituency is under a different returning officer for parliamentary and district elections. Who is in charge and who is responsible? Sharing ballot boxes and the same counting facilities can apply only when the district and parliamentary elections are co-determined.

Mr. Rees: I do not believe that there is a problem. A copy of the schedule to the Bill has been handed to me—it will be published tomorrow—and the hon. Gentleman will see that only polling stations used for the parliamentary elections will be used. The responsibilities will fall to the returning officer for the parliamentary election. Then it will be a case of handing over the ballot papers of a different colour to the district council returning officer. If there is a problem, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will let me know. I shall see that it is looked at before Monday.

Mr. Michael English: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it shows a sad distrust of the electorate to assume that it would not come out for a local election after the parliamentary election? Does he also agree that one of the reasons for low polls in local elections is that people tend


to vote on national issues in such elections? Does he not think that this proposal will encourage people to vote on national issues in local elections?
Did my right hon. Friend consider this major constitutional change carefully, or has it been decided upon suddenly for some other reason? Is it desirable that one of the major issues in a campaign in Nottingham should be sub-postmaster Jack Green's leadership of the Conservative Party in the city?

Mr. Rees: A 3 May election was always a possibility, but it was my job to think about the arrangements in relation to the possibility of an election on 7 June. I do not regard the proposal as a great radical step. My hon. Friend's remarks that there are low polls in local elections because the electors vote on national issues may or may not be true, but we could not have made the arrangements for the week before. The date proposed is the earliest possible and it would have been bad to have local elections in the week before the Westminster elections. That is what moved me most on behalf of the Government.

Mr. Ian Grist: What will happen where the parliamentary and local authority boundaries are not coterminous? Which returning officer will be responsible and what advice will be given to electors in those areas? How will the costs be assigned? If a poster saying "Vote Conservative" or "Vote Labour" appears in one ward of a constituency, to which candidate will the cost be assigned?

Mr. Rees: There are many places where boundaries are not coterminous. That will not be put right until the largest parliamentary redistribution for 40 or 50 years takes place—perhaps before the general election after next. The returning officer for the parliamentary election will be in charge.
I do not know whether it is the right thing to say, but consultations have taken place with the party offices on the question of costs and I do not think that there is any problem. If a parliamentary candidate shares a platform with a council candidate and they have booked a hall and had posters printed, the normal arrangement will be that the costs should be shared. How they are shared will be a matter for local discussion.

Mr. Allen McKay: Will my right hon. Friend consider the problems that could occur in my area where we have an all-out election for the local authority and, at the same time, a boundary change? There will, therefore, be some mix-up in the locality.

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend is talking about the new Barnsley area. We are aware of that problem and discussions are taking place. I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He has picked the one place where re-warding may have raised a problem. However, I do not believe that it is insurmountable.

Mr. Cranky Onslow: Whose agents will be responsible for supervising the opening of the boxes and the separating of the votes? Will it be only the agents of parliamentary candidates, or will council candidates' agents be involved? In practical terms, what effect is the double election likely to have on the start of a new Parliament? How much longer shall we have to wait up for the news of a Tory victory?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman was asking about party workers, and that is a matter which will have to be decided locally. Workers will have to fill out the appropriate forms and the appropriate persons for supervising the opening of the boxes will be those registered for the parliamentary elections, since the parliamentary returning officer will be in charge. However, I shall check that point precisely before Monday.
There is bound to be a delay. Who can tell how long it will be? The coloured ballot papers will have to be separated from the rest before the count takes place. I have heard that in some cases there may be a delay of an hour or half an hour, but it is anyone's guess.

Mr. Giles Shaw: Some candidates may be standing at both elections in the same area. What guidance does the right hon. Gentleman propose to give to the media in relation to the balance, which is usually achieved, in pre-election broadcasting and so on? If a parliamentary candidate who is also standing for the council appears on local radio or in the other media, can other council candidates complain?

Mr. Rees: I had not considered that point, principally because it is not my responsibility.

Mr. Giles Shaw: It occurs in Leeds.

Mr. Rees: It does not happen in my constituency. It is not a matter for the Bill, but there may be a problem if a man or woman stands as a parliamentary candidate and as a council candidate. It will not arise under the Bill, but I shall see that it is drawn to the notice of the broadcasting authorites.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Can my right hon. Friend tell me something about the free post for general elections? Will the Bill amend the existing position to allow local authoritiy election deliveries to be included in the free post system, or are the two to be kept separate?

Mr. Rees: Mr. Speaker's Conferences over the years have decided that the free post system should be available only for parliamentary elections. I am leaving it at that. I believe that it is right to do it that way. It means that local council candidates will have to deliver their election material as before. One of the considerations that weighed with me was that, if we provided a free post for local council elections, it would prompt those who had no intention or desire to be elected to a local authority to take advantage of the free post. I do not believe that that was something which I ought to have arranged in the Bill. That was one of the reasons. There will not be a free post for the local authority elections.

Mr. Roger Moat: Does the Home Secretary agree that there is nothing sacrosanct about having a general election on a Thursday? Has it occurred to him that all the doubts and confusion and the need for legislation could have been avoided if he went for, say, Tuesday 1 May, which would still be possible within the time scale? [HON. MEMBERS: "That is a public Holiday."] If some of the problems seem insuperable when the right hon. Getleman introduces legislation, will be consider that possibility?

Mr. Rees: There should be no confusion and doubt. If there is, it is self-induced. May I say, speaking on behalf of the Government, that I believe that it would be a mistake to have the elections within two or three days, or even a week, of each other. It is as simple as that.

Mr. John Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that he will have sufficient staff to cope both at

the counting stations and the polling booths?

Mr. Rees: If I may be pedantic for a moment, I should point out that they would not be my staff. It is a matter of talking with the returning officers. The short answer is that I do not believe that there will be a problem in that respect.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Has the Home Secretary any thoughts about informing the electorate of the mechanics of the Government's proposal? Do the Government intend to take advertising space in newspapers, and so on? Would it not be worth while to consider having all the counts on the following day, given the considerable delays that are likely to occur?

Mr. Rees: As the representative of an urban area, I do not want to have to wait until the following day for the result. Such a course would be a mistake. In the Bill—perhaps in the schedule, though we shall have to see—there is a matter of advice, which I presume relates to what happens outside the polling booths. I take the hon. Gentleman's point and will consider it to see whether more general advice should be given. It may be that the press will aid us, but that is another matter.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the cases where a council ward is in one parliamentary constituency but the council itself is in another parliamentary constituence and both the district and parliamentary voting slips will go to the same count? Could not a separate ballot box be provided in such cases? It would be far simpler and would save a lot of time.

Mr. Rees: There are 45,000 ballot boxes for the whole country that would need extra polling booths and separate rooms. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) was here earlier, but we have taken that into account. It is a matter of the verification and separation that night. There are many constituencies. My Parliamentary Private Secretary represents four counties and goodness knows how many district councils. I am sure that we can manage.

Mr. William Clark: I take the point about there being no free post for local elections, but legally


would there be anything wrong in putting the local councillors' election addresses in the free post for the general election?

Mr. Rees: It would be against the law. If anyone were silly enough to do that, it would be a, matter for the courts.

Mr. Joseph Dean: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant God-man Irvine): I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
1. Forestry Act 1979
2. Confirmation to Small Estates (Scotland) Act 1979
3. Public Health Laboratory Service Act 1979

Orders of the Day — INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY BILL

Resolved,
That this House immediately resolve itself into Committee on the Independent Broadcasting Authority Bill—[Mr. Joseph Dean.]

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Dr. Summerskill: On the terms of the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), I am satisfied that the proposed application by the Authority of up to a total sum of £10 million from the current surplus on any of its television services branch reserves to meet any expenditure does not and cannot have the effect of contravening section 29(1) of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 1973.
On the general point made by my hon. Friend, he will have received a letter from my right hon. Friend explaining the position on delay. My right hon. Friend has recently acknowledged to the chairman of the Authority that the delays in publishing in 1977–78 accounts were to a large extent due to factors beyond the Authority's control, but he is sure that in future publication in the autumn must be the aim.

Mr. English: The organisation is small in numbers of people and in terms of money. Why must it take so much longer to produce its accounts than great multinational companies that normally consolidate their accounts from subsidiaries all over the world and publish them within three months? The delay may be caused by the Home Office, but why must we be so inefficient in Government?

Dr. Summerskill: The Home Office will make every effort that the accounts should be produced by the summer, but to be absolutely safe I would say the autumn. We have taken note of what my hon. Friend says.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. English: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 3, line 13, at end add—
'(8) All expenditures of money under this Act shall be subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General'.
Hon. Members will understand my concern and that of the Expenditure and Procedure Committees of the House about the audit of public money. We have had experiences such as those with the Crown Agents that show that our system of audit is not wholly satisfactory. In the 1940s there was a long argument whether nationalised industries should be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and his exchequer and audit departments or by private auditors. It was then decided that nationalised industries should have private auditors.
The IBA, however, is not a nationalised industry in that sense. Independent television is not a nationalised industry and the IBA is in modern terms a quango. It is a fairly small licensing and supervisory body, and is not to any great extent in the market economy. There is no need for it to be excluded from the purview of the public system of audit. That system needs revision, and that is being studied by the Treasury, but there is no need to exclude quangos. I can see an argument why British Rail or the Central Electricity Generating Board should be excluded, but not a small licensing and supervisory body of this character.
In the last debate I quoted from the statement of the auditor that was appended to the accounts. It mentioned the historic cost convention. I said that


that was a qualification. The director of finance of the IBA asked me to point out that qualification in its technical sense is not what I meant. What I meant—and what is not pointed out in his letter—is the present argument between these bodies, their accountants and the Treasury on how to provide for the depreciation of assets.
Prosperous organisations such as the British Gas Corporation wish to make more provision than less prosperous organisations. It puzzles me that the IBA, which one would think is in the prosperous sector, is on the side of depreciating by historic costs. The auditors singled out historic costs although I believe the IBA may make other provision as well. In the light of recent discussions between nationalised industries, quangos and the Treasury, it is puzzling why the IBA should wish to act as if it were a poor authority rather than a rich one. I wonder if the Minister could answer both those points.

Dr. Summerskill: On my hon. Friend's second point concerning quangos, I do not want to go into their definition, but it would not seem appropriate for a broadcasting authority any more than for a nationalised industry such as British Rail. Broadcasting authorities are there to provide services. The BBC provides such services itself, whereas the IBA does so by entering into contracts with individual television and radio companies. Both carry out their duties in accordance with the terms of their covering instruments. For the most part they carry out their functions quite independently of the Home Secretary.
A further point that is particularly relevant in the context of this amendment is that the IBA is financed not by the Government but by the rentals that it is empowered to raise from ITV and independent local radio companies.
I cannot accept my hon. Friend's amendment for the purposes of auditing. It appears to distinguish between one part of the IBA's accounts and the remainder.
The effect of the amendment would be to make the IBA accounts referable to expenditure under this Bill subject to the Comptroller and Auditor General's

audit, with the remaining accounts being audited by an appointed private firm.

6 p.m.

Mr. English: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is always kind and courteous in these matters, but she must be aware that I had to phrase my amendments within the scope of the Bill as she had approved it. If she is saying that she will lay an amendment widening the scope of the Bill, I will willingly widen my amendment to ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General audits all the IBA's accounts.

Dr. Summerskill: Obviously this will be considered when the major Bill comes forward. We see no reason now for interfering with the present process by which the Authority's accounts are audited by an independent firm of auditors. A review of the Exchequer and Audit Acts is currently being undertaken and this will consider the general question of the Comptroller and Auditor General's powers. It would be inappropriate at this stage to consider any departure from current practices.

Amendment negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. English: I intervene briefly to ask just one question. On Second Reading we did not have the accounts of the Authority available. They came the day after. I observe that in this clause and in the principal Act, money is being lent by the Treasury at a rate of interest agreed by the Treasury. I take it that that is a higher rate of interest than that at which the Treasury can borrow. My point in asking this is that I trust the Treasury is not subsidising the IBA. On certain previous occasions the IBA has incurred a deficit—in setting up local radio stations, for example.
One can imagine public subsidies to certain types of organisation. Most railways throughout the world are subsidised by the public. It has been the policy of this Government to ensure that nationalised industries and others are not subsidised by the taxpayer where this is not necessary. The previous Government went to the extent of forcing nationalised industries to run into debt so that they were, in effect, subsidised by the taxpayer. Can my hon. Friend assure me


that it is not the intention to have a public subsidy to a private industry? The IBA's charges are primarily provided for by the rentals that they charge the various private companies. Some of those companies are small, but some are very large and profitable. There is no real reason why the taxpayer should subsidise them. Will the Minister assure us that there will be no such subsidy, even a concealed one, by way of a cheap rate of interest?

Dr. Summerskill: I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that the Treasury will not subsidise the IBA in any way. The rate of interest will be the normal one for any Government loan.

Mr. English: I take up the Minister's last point in which she said
the normal one for any Government loan.
But the Government are a more creditworthy borrower than many people. Does she mean by the "normal rate of interest" one that is just sufficient to cover the Treasury's costs in borrowing, or does she mean a rate of interest that is equivalent to the market rate for a private sector organisation?

Dr. Summerskill: The Home Secretary, who knows about these matters, informs me that it is the latter.

Mr. English: Thank you.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I understand that the motions concerned with broadcasting may be taken together, if that is the wish of the House.

6.4 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Broadcasting (Command Paper No. 7294).
I am grateful that we are able to consider with this the other motion:
That the Supplemental Licence and Agreement between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the British Broadcasting Corporation, dated 8 March 1979, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19 March, be approved.
The report of the Annan committee on the future of broadcasting ranged over the whole field of broadcasting and gave everybody—the Government, the broadcasters, those with a professional concern with broadcasting, and the listening and viewing public—a great deal to think about.
The Government received many comments on the report and had discussions with the main organisations and groups involved. The White Paper, which forms the subject of the debate today, was written in the light of those comments and discussions. Last July, when the White Paper was published, I outlined to the House the main proposals which it contained. I said that there would be discussions with the broadcasting organisations and I invited comments from anyone who wished to make them. We have now had those discussions and received many comments.
Given the events of last night, obviously there will be no Bill, but the Government remain committed to the basic strategy set out in the White Paper and in the new Session we aim to introduce a Bill. There are so few Members in the House at present that it is not appropriate to argue who will win or lose the election, but we all have our opinions.
We dealt first in the White Paper with the philosophy of broadcasting in this country. The principle that the broadcasting services should continue to be provided as public services by public authorities underlies all the rest of our


proposals. We also endorsed the Annan committee's analysis of the four requisites for good broadcasting—flexibility, diversity, editorial independence and public accountability.
The need for flexibility, diversity, independence and accountability is particularly important when considering the new service which will be available to us in the next few years—the fourth television channel.
I want here and now to place on record that the Government remain convinced that the fourth television channel should be run by an Open Broadcasting Authority, as proposed in the White Paper, and the legislation we shall introduce in the new Parliament will contain provisions o that effect.
It is clear that there is widspread support for the kind of programme strategy which was envisaged by the White Paper—following, of course, on the lead of the Annan committee. I remind the House that the fourth channel should give priority to educational programmes, to programmes catering for tastes and interests which are not adequately catered for on the existing three services, and to programmes produced outside the existing broadcasting organisations. This does not mean a dull channel but one which will set out to provide something new and different.
There is no doubt that the channel will need Government assistance, at any rate in the early years. But I see no reason to qualify the view in the White Paper that, as it becomes an established part of broadcasting in this country and gains a regular following among viewers, the Government will expect the OBA to look to advertising revenue of various kinds to provide, directly and indirectly, an important and increasing source of its finance.
I do not think that an initial reliance on Government financial support will in any way compromise the independence of the OBA. The new authority will be free to acquire its programmes from whatever sources and in whatever ways it judges best, within, naturally, the limits of its overall financial resources, and subject to the same common obligations as lie on the other two broadcasting authorities with the exception, given the very nature

of the service, of the requirement to provide a proper balance of programmes.
The costs of programmes may be met, either wholly or in part, by sponsorship or revenue from the sale of advertising time, but the OBA will also be enabled to allocate a certain amount of air time to the ITV companies, in consultation with the IBA, against payment of a rental. Those who rent time in this way will be able to sell advertising during it on their own behalf. This offers interesting and challenging possibilities to the ITV companies, to which I hope they will respond.
I do not propose to say much about the fourth channel in Wales. There are no hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies present, nor are there many others. I understand that this matter has already been dealt with. However, I reiterate our commitment on the question of the use of the fourth channel in Wales.
I turn now to the BBC. I shall ask the House to approve the draft supplemental licence and agreement. First I should like to say something about the BBC's Royal charter and the draft supplemental charter, which is also before the House this evening.
This is an important matter, although the House is sparsely attended. If there is not much interest in the Annan discussions, that is understandable. However, I think I should use my time to discuss the White Paper.
The principal charter sets up the BBC as a corporate body, defines its objectives, prescribes its constitution, makes provision for the appointment of advisory councils and contains other financial provisions. It was granted in March 1964 and in July 1976 was extended by a supplemental charter to 31 July this year.
The proposed supplemental charter, when approved, will amend the BBC's principal charter in three main respects. First, it will provide for the continuation of the BBC for a further period until 31 July 1981. Second, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State announced to the House on 29 January, it will increase the BBC's borrowing limit from the present £30 million to £100 million but, following discussions that I have had with the Corporation, subject to my specific approval for any borrowing in


excess of £75 million. Third, it will enable the Corporation to pay a pension to the chairman of the BBC governors.
Hon. Members will recall that the White Paper on the future of broadcasting proposed that the BBC should continue as a broadcasting authority providing broadcasting services of information, education and entertainment and that it should continue to enjoy its present status as a charter body. I do not think there is any dissent from that proposition.
However, the future of the BBC must be seen in the context of the major broadcasting legislation which will be necessary to implement the other proposals in the White Paper. That legislation cannot now be proceeded with in this Session and we have taken this into account in deciding on a two-year extension for the BBC. The Broadcasting Bill, when it comes, will include provision to enable the Independent Broadcasting Authority to carry out its duties and functions in relation to the programme contractors for independent television after 1 January 1982. The Government intend, once that legislation has been enacted—this is the relevance of referring to the IBA—to apply for the grant of a new Royal charter extending the life of the BBC for a similar period to that which the House decides for the IBA.
The BBC's principal licence and agreement is, in part, a licence granted by me under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 authorising the Corporation to operate wireless telegraphy stations subject to certain conditions, and in part an agreement between the BBC and myself. On this agreement depend not only the detailed arrangements for the financing of the BBC's domestic and external services but also many important matters relating to BBC services and programme standards. The life of the licence and agreement, which was made initially between the BBC and the Postmaster-General in 1969, was extended by a supplemental deed in April 1976, which is also due to expire in July this year.
The new supplemental licence and agreement is intended to provide for the life of the principal licence and agreement to continue until 31 July 1981. It also provides for an adjustment in the annual fee payable by the BBC in respect of the licence.
It may be of assistance at this point if I explain briefly to hon. Members why it is the licence and agreement that is the subject of the formal motion before the House. As I have said, the agreement deals, among other things, with the financing of the BBC's external services. This means, to use the formal phrase, that it creates a public charge entered into for the purpose of telegraphic communications beyond sea. This brings it within the terms of Standing Order No. 96, which requires anything creating such a charge to be approved by a motion of this House before it can have binding effect.
I return now to the charter and to the two changes which are now being made to it. The increases in the borrowing limits have been necessitated by the increased demands placed on the BBC's finances by the recent Central Arbitration Committee pay award of 16½ per cent. to BBC staff. The cost of this could have been met by a further increase in the television licence fee, but I am sure all hon. Members would agree that it would have been unacceptable to have had two increases in the fees within three or four months. The BBC has acknowledged this, and has accepted the increase in the borrowing powers, although it hopes that it will only be necessary to invoke them to provide a temporary breathing space.
In my discussions with the Corporation it agreed that borrowing power above £75 million should be subject to my approval. The present borrowing limit of £30 million was established in 1964 when, much to my surprise, the BBC's expenditure was just over £50 million a year. As a proportion of its expenditure, therefore, the BBC's new borrowing limit will be lower than it was in 1964. That is the basis of the motion.
Perhaps I could deal with one or two other points. I am happy to go on at greater length but it would be appropriate if I summarised them.
I should like to say something about the IBA. As someone who was not in the House at the time when this body had different initials, I disapproved of what happened. One may only admit to being wrong. It was a good idea. It has worked extremely well. It has taken its place alongside the BBC over the past quarter of a century. We discussed a number of matters in our debates on the Bill to enable the Authority to engineer


the fourth channel. At this point I should like to mention a few general matters concerning the Authority's future that were dealt with in the White Paper.
First, the forthcoming legislation will extend the life of the IBA beyond its expiry date of 31 December 1981. There can be no question, whatever the Government of the day, but that the IBA, which has done so much, should continue in being with the assurance of a settled future. Secondly, it remains our intention to extend the IBA's responsibilities to include the supervision of the distribution of television and radio services over cable. This will include any local community services which may be set up, hospital and university broadcasting services and pilot schemes of pay television. At present all those matters are the responsibility of the Home Office. We believe it is right that supervision of this type of programme service should lie with an independent authority which is already accustomed to such a role.
I turn briefly—not because I regard it as unimportant—to local radio. It has been one of the great developments of recent years. I know from my experience of my own area in the North what an important part Radio Leeds plays there. It is much more difficult—I leave it like that—in the London area, where there is not the same locality on which to focus. Local radio in London tends to have a different role. Although this subject was not within my responsibility before I became the Home Secretary, I may say that London local radio is conscious of its local role but is operating in a different area.
Our announcements last year that the development of local radio was to be resumed and that the BBC and the IBA would be permitted to expand their local radio services were welcomed. However, in some areas it would be neither practical nor sensible to provide more than one service. It will be interesting to see what happens as the years go on. Remarkable changes are taking place on the technical side. We shall have to see.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: Will my right hon. Friend say whether any representatives of the groups calling for more community radio have been appointed to the working party set up

to look at the future development of local radio?

Mr. Rees: I do not think that the answer is "Yes". It is not that I believe that that is unimportant. I think that they should put their case. It is most important that they should. I did not know that my hon. Friend was present. It is not just a matter of the technical changes that are taking place. It is most important that different sorts of companies and groups of people should be able to get together in this respect. I am sure that there will be interesting and valuable changes in this over the years.
As I said a moment ago, the working party—under the chairmanship of the Home Office—on which both the BBC and the IBA are represented, has completed its first task of preparing proposals for an immediate initial expansion of local radio. Those are the 18 stations, and I leave it at that.
Where there is to be an extension of the independent local radio franchise, public meetings will form part of the normal procedure by which the IBA decides to which applicant to award the contract. Not all aspects of the proposals would be appropriate for public discussion, but the House will be interested to know that the BBC has indicated that it, too, intends to hold public meetings to assist the Corporation in deciding and determining finally the programme service to be provided in an area. The working party is now proceeding with the second part of its task, relating to local radio stations in all other parts of the country.
With regard to broadcasting and advisory bodies, it may be that the House, with this sort of attendance, will look at the problem in a different way from when I talked about it last year. I had no desire to set up so-called quangos, but I was very surprised to see the number of bodies that exist. We have got to consider this, but the parrot cry of "Quango" does not get us very far. Most people serving on quangos do not get much out of it. They perform a very valuable public service, and we ought all to look at the question in that context.
The White Paper made clear that the Government approached the whole question of establishing new organisations in


the field of broadcasting. Annan recommended an Open Broadcasting Authority, a Local Broadcasting Authority, a Public Enquiry Board for Broadcasting, a Broadcasting Complaints Commission, and a Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Our view was that new bodies should not be set up unless there is a clear need. After some of the happenings—not on the Home Office side—in setting up new organisations and in reorganising which have taken place in the last 10 years, my first instinct is to say "No" to any reorganisation. Goodness knows where it leads sometimes, so that one has a certain suspicion about it.
We considered that there was a clear need for an OBA and for a Broadcasting Complaints Commission. We also considered it right to propose service management boards for the BBC. I do not want to get involved in inside BBC matters, but these are changes in the structure of an existing organisation. We accepted the need for a Broadcasting Technical Advisory Committee, with a more limited remit than Annan's Telecommunications Advisory Committee. We did not consider it necessary to set up and have not proposed the establishment of a Local Broadcasting Authority or a Public Enquiry Board. This was not simply because of the fear of having yet another organisation, or any concern about that. I thought that, coming to it from the outside, it would be much better to let the BBC and the IBA keep their local broadcasting, which gives them roots in an area. It is very valuable because it feeds back.
The changes that we have proposed will entail an increase in ministerial appointments. It is to a large extent inevitable. It is difficult to see who but the Government could appoint the OBA or the Complaints Commission. The need is not perhaps quite so obvious in the case of the service management boards, to which I shall come in a moment, or the BBC's national advisory councils for Scotland and Wales, and the IBA's advisory committees for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are all there already.

Mr. Julian Critchley: Why is it that the Northern Ireland Advisory Board for the BBC has been left out?

Mr. Rees: I think that perhaps in many ways Northern Ireland is different. Over

the years it has been dealt with in a different way. Perhaps it is better to leave it in this way until some of the political matters there are settled, but is certainly a point that I noticed when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
The BBC councils and the IBA committees have an important part to play in the development of broadcasting which really serves the needs of the distinct parts of the United Kingdom for which they respectively have responsibilities. Our proposals for their reconstitution are intended to reflect their importance. It is not part of our policy or intention that these changes should lead to Government interference in the traditional freedom of broadcasters.
The appointments will be made only after consultation with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as appropriate, and with the chairman of the governors in the case of the BBC or the chairman of the Authority in the case of the IBA. I have not had to make many appointments in this field. They do not come up with great regularity. We have appointed some very fine people, but the matter of appointment is not the easiest of tasks. Does one keep a long list of people? How does one set about it? This ought to be considered at some time.
Concerning the service management boards, we had in mind the criticisms which had been made of the BBC as an organisation, and which to some extent have been endorsed by Annan—that while its overall performance was good, it had become too monolithic and bureaucratic. It was said, in particular, that confusion had developed between the two functions of the governors of the BBC—on the one hand, their role as supervisors, in the public interest, of the BBC as a public broadcasting service, and, on the other hand, their overall responsibility for the management of the broadcasting services of the BBC, with the result that the former had sometimes been subordinated to the latter.
One cannot compare the two authorities exactly, because they have different roles, but the supervisory side of the IBA is much more clearcut. When we looked at this, I felt that there was confusion about the role of the governors of the BBC. What are we asking the governors to do? Are they concerned with the


public interest or have they a management role? A good deal of thought was given to this. Our view was that the governors should be distanced from detailed management so that they could concentrate on their supervisory and regulatory functions. We proposed that three service management boards should be set up, for television, radio and the external services, each of which would be responsible to the governors as a whole for supervising the programme strategy and management of its service.
The BBC has accepted the force of the criticisms that have been levelled at it—amid, I emphasise, a very great deal of praise. The governors, while opposing the introduction of the boards, have accepted the aims which lie behind them and have recently, as some hon. Members will know, made certain organisational changes on their own account. We shall watch the progress of these new arrangements with interest. Nevertheless, the Government's proposals remain as stated in the White Paper, and we could proceed with these in the new charter for the BBC, which will follow the main broadcasting legislation, with any modifications which might seem desirable.
Before closing, I should like to say a word about the more general question of the financing of the BBC. The Government accepted the Annan committee's recommendation that the BBC should continue to be financed principally from the revenue of the broadcast receiving licence. The Government recognise that there are arguments both for and against the licensing system. We are, however, conscious of the difficulty of adding to the planned levels of public expenditure, and we do not think it practicable to increase them by sums which are now of the order of £350 million a year. Nevertheless, we are looking at several aspects of the licensing system. It does not necessarily mean that we shall want to make any changes.
We acknowledged last year the problems which a one-year increase in the licence fees caused for the BBC's future financial planning, and we are now conducting discussions with the BBC about its future financial requirement and about the basis on which it could be enabled to carry forward its longer-term planning.

I have set up a study to examine the question of free television licences or concessionary arrangements for retirement pensioners and other groups. We all know that this sort of thing causes a good deal of argument or feeling sometimes between those who get benefit under such arrangements and those who do not. The standing working party on the administration of the television licensing system is examining the possibilities of improving methods of payment under the existing licensing system.
I hope that the reports of these studies will be published, probably together, about the middle of the year. They will set out facts without commitment and in an orderly way, for the information of Parliament and the public. These reports will be published to aid public discussion of the relevant issues, including alternative methods of financing the BBC.
I have not been able to cover every aspect. However, I or my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be happy, as the debate goes on, to deal with any points that arise.
There is one last point that I should like to make. The legislation that is introduced next Session—whoever has to do it—will set up the structure of broadcasting for virtually the rest of this century. We are used to thinking of broadcasting in terms of television and radio as we know them today, but we must not provide a structure that does not allow for the technological developments which are bound to come.
We can already see the development of teletex systems by means of which information can be displayed on the screens of individual viewers. There are new possibilities for the use of cable networks which will become particularly important as the need diminishes for cable relay to supply regular BBC and ITV services when they cannot receive off air.
We need to retain a flexibility to respond to change. I believe that our proposals will do that. When we discuss these proposals, in whatever fashion, I believe that this is something that the House should take into account.
I conclude by reiterating the Government's commitment to the strategy set out in the White Paper, and I look forward to bringing the necessary legislation before the House next Session.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. Julian Critchley: We are as weary as metaphors such as "The morning after the night before" and "The morning after the Lord Mayor's Show" suggest. After waiting for this debate for so very long—it has been postponed so often—there is a certain irony in the fact that we should at last be debating this matter on the day following the defeat of the Government—as it were, in limbo. The very fact that the Home Secretary and I are standing face to face is proof, if it were needed, of life after death.
What can I say about the Home Secretary's speech? As Rossini once said of Wagner:
Some of his minutes were good, but his quarter hours were not so good.
That joke would have been better had the Home Secretary's speech been longer and the audience larger.
There are some things in the White Paper that we like. For instance, we support the concept of the Complaints Commission and we welcome the apparent extension of local radio—especially independent local radio—and we are committed, as a party, to raising the ceiling to 60 stations. However, there is more in the White Paper which we dislike and which we shall strongly oppose.
We dislike very much indeed the proposal for a service management board for the BBC, whereby ministerial appointees are thrust into the BBC to help run radio, television and the external services. We now know how this strange suggestion was conceived. The right hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers) made the proposal in the Cabinet committee in order to ward off the attacks on the BBC that were threatened by some of his more radical colleagues. Is this the road to hell? No doubt the Hungarian service of the BBC has already made the point that, if one has the right hon. Member for Stockton as a friend, one has no need of enemies.
This proposal is without a friend. Leaving aside the point that one does not make an allegedly bureaucratic organisation less heavy by introducing a new layer of administration, we believe that it would be an error to complicate the running of the BBC by adding ministerial appointees to those already appointed by the Crown.
Who will these Government nominees be? According to the White Paper, that other abortion, the OBA, is to be staffed by people with original ideas and the ability to put them into practice. Would that we had more of them in this place. However, where does that proposal leave the BBC? Does it leave it with the superannuated barons of the TUC, the elderly party hacks, the sociologists from redbrick universities or Mr. Russell Harty? Even if the Home Secretary was free to call upon the Apostles, the idea is a bad one and we shall have none of it.
The Government's appetite is insatiable. Not only do they want to place their men at the heart of the Corporation—men who would owe loyalty to two masters—but they also wish to assume the appointment of the members to the IBA's advisory committees in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the members of the BBC's national broadcasting councils in Scotland and Wales. Somehow Northern Ireland seems to have escaped.
All these proposals are as silly as they are sinister. They suggest that some Government, of whatever party, might one day, in the heat of a row with the broadcasting authorities—and we all remember yesterday's men—be able to lean more effectively upon the broadcasting authorities.
The heart of our objection to the White Paper is that, were its proposals with regard to service management boards and the OBA to be implemented, the result would be to weaken the authorities that govern broadcasting to the advantage of Government. To that process we are strongly opposed. The White Paper proposes Government intervention in broadcasting on a scale previously unknown in Britain and far exceeding anything that would be considered reasonable were it applied to the press.
Let us examine the proposal for an OBA more closely. We know that it was foisted, in humiliating circumstances, upon an unwilling Home Secretary who, in this House in 1977, expressed his wonder about its financial viability—as indeed he might. The proposals do not carry conviction either financially or editorially and, even more important, some of the proposals constitute a grave threat to the


independence of not only the OBA—if it were ever to come into being—but also the IBA and the BBC. I shall ask four questions of the House. What will we see on the OBA fourth channel if it is set up? Who will watch it? Who will pay for it? Who is to work for it?
The programmes that the Government would like us to see are mainly of the educational and improving kind—such as programmes that are produced outside existing broadcasting organisations. But all these have a place on the draft schedule of the second ITV channel, though not to the exclusion of all else.
Unlike the supporters of an OBA, we believe that all programmes should be watched and that a sensible and balanced programme policy can be achieved only by complementary scheduling. In short, the relationship between ITV1 and ITV2 would be the same as the relationship between BB1 and BB2. Yet the Government want the fourth channel to be run by an oligarchy remote from the making of programmes.
Who is to pay for it? The answer is that we shall all pay for it out of taxation. The Conservatives are against the OBA for two reasons. First, it would mean a third authority, but an authority in name only. Secondly, we do not favour any solution that would cost the Revenue money. The Revenue would be obliged to pay its whack. To add to this uncomfortable fact of life, the Government have now come up with three further ways of raising money—sponsorship, advertising en bloc and spot advertising.
Let me first deal with sponsorship. It is possible that the Ford Motor Company, for example, could be persuaded to sponsor a series of programmes, such as four plays all filmed on location with well-known stars. It would cost not far short of £1 million. We would get four hours of television for £1 million—only four hours out of the OBA's week would be filled, and there are another 36 hours to be paid for.
I do not think that many sponsors would be willing to do that more than once a year, especially on a channel which would be likely to attract fewer viewers than does the second channel on the BBC at present.
Advertising en bloc went out years ago with the awful magazine programmes, while spot advertising—were that to be successful—would start the battle of the ratings between the BBC, ITV and the OBA. Would that raise the standard of programmes, or make room for the sensible "minority" programmes we all want?
There would also be a major objection to working in or for the OBA. That is because it would be an authority in name only. Unlike the BBC, which has its income from the licence fee, and the IBA which has its income from advertising, the OBA would in large part be dependent on Government money; and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
An OBA, therefore, would be a step in the wrong direction, a step in favour of control of broadcasting on the part of the Government. We Conservatives stand for the freedom of broadcasting, which is not the same thing as the freedom of those who broadcast. We will support and strengthen the existing institutions. We will support them against the power of Governments and, just as important, we will support them when they are obliged to carry out their obligations to fairness and moderation—obligations which come under fire from some who work within broadcasting itself. There are those who believe in extended notions of freedom and who are hostile to all control on the part of the broadcasting authorities. We refuse to emancipate them.
We all want so-called "minority programmes"—educated programmes for literate people. There are not enough of them on television, but that is what the fourth channel is all about. However, why should it be that new institutions are always necessary? It does not follow that standards can be improved only by an OBA. The "idealogues" are in search of monuments to themselves. The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), the father of the OBA, is a romantic; and romantics are always attracted to the media. Yet he is not a figure of fun and frolic. If he had his way, he would be happily revealing—and at inordinate length—the evils of our society. God save us from those with a sense of mission.
ITV2 would cost the Revenue nothing. Indeed, it would gain. It would give


scope for the regional and smaller television companies. On its programme planning board, to be overseen by the IBA, would sit representatives of the independent producers—all three of them—and the educational interests.
The major companies, which at present contribute more than half the programmes on ITV1, would be responsible for a smaller proportion on the second channel. The regional companies should contribute at least half as much again. Eventually up to 15 per cent. of ITV2 would be devoted to educational programmes, and there would be plenty of room for the independents.
When we form the Government, ITV2 will, therefore, be run by the existing companies, subject, of course, to any changes in the franchises which may take place between now and 1982. The companies have already invested in men and studios, and have the skill that would enable them to produce the necessary programmes. Two ITV channels will enable independent television to compete with the BBC on equal terms, and by so doing will give the viewer a wider range of better programmes. That will take care of the fourth channel. As a Government, we shall then have to start thinking about the fifth and sixth channels.
Because the order of business has been changed, so that the extension of the BBC's charter is included in this one debate, I should like to make one or two brief references to that part of the debate before I sit down.
Of course, this is the second instalment of the hand-to-mouth attitude of a dying Government to broadcasting matters. The supplemental licence extends the life of the BBC for a further two years, but it also increases the borrowing powers of the BBC from £30 million to £100 million. This is in part due to the 16½ per cent. pay rise awarded just before Christmas to the staff of the BBC. On the one hand the Government have not allowed the BBC to increase the licence fee to the extent it wanted, and on the other they have taken the easy way out by forcing the Corporation into debt.
This must mean that the next time the BBC comes to a Government for an increase in the licence fee that fee will have to be even larger than it would otherwise be. For example, in an answer to a question tabled by myself on 8 February

this year, the Home Secretary indicated that, if the BBC were to draw on one half of its additional powers, the interest charges would eventually require an additional 50p on the licence fee. Were the BBC to use the lot, an additional 80p would be required on the licence fee. This is, of course, the rake's progress, but without the benefit of Rex Harrison.
The Government have treated the BBC badly. The Annan committee decided that the licence fee was the best method of financing the BBC, and that a separate source of income has underwritten its independence. That independence has been threatened by the Government's meanness, and that meanness has been induced by the imminence of an election that has influenced their action and obliged them to say "No" to what was a perfectly legitimate increase that was asked for by the BBC.
It is quite wrong that the BBC has been obliged to hold out a begging bowl. It is not an instrument of Government policy at one remove, as is the Arts Council or the Film Institute. It is part of an independent estate, and should be funded adequately as of right. The health of British broadcasting depends upon a BBC that has financial resources roughly equal to those of ITV.
The Conservative Party will retain the licence fee system, but perhaps in Government we might consider setting up a committee of three wise men to make an independent assessment of the BBC's needs and to relieve us of the embarrassment which has clearly overcome the Government.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Inevitably, this is my swan song in this House. It is a rather sad day for me. Before coming to the main theme of my speech, I should like to put on record my thanks and appreciation to right hon. and hon. Members for the abiding courtesy and consideration they have shown to me, even when they disagreed with the opinions that I have expressed. My memory of this House is something that I shall treasure for the future, and I shall also remember and miss the comradeship that I have known. I wish all right hon. and hon. Members well for the future.
I shall confine my remarks to that part of the White Paper which deals with the


portrayal of violence and related questions in paragraphs 103 to 106 on pages 39 to 41. As the House will appreciate, I am again riding my hobby-horse. For a long time I have been concerned about the effect which television violence has, especially on young people. An early-day motion stands in my name, which has been sponsored by right hon. and hon. Members of all parties, except the Welsh. It is to the effect that this House is strongly of the opinion that films which cannot be shown to persons under 18 in cinemas should not be shown on television. At present, that motion is signed by 136 right hon. and hon. Members.
I am, therefore, concerned that X-certificate films, which cannot be seen in a cinema by people under 18, can be viewed by youngsters of any age in their homes. I have had considerable correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary of State on this matter, and also with my noble Friend Lord Boston of Faversham, the Minister of State, Home Office.
In a recent letter to me, Lord Boston points out that
films which carry an X-certificate for cinemas are often edited before being shown on television".
My noble Friend added:
this often has the effect of changing the categorisation—for example when the film Soldier Blue appeared on TV the effect of cuts made to it was to change its X-certificate to the equivalent of AA.
I appreciate that, and I have revised my opinion about X-certificate films. I have other proposals to make, which I shall elaborate a little later, but first of all let me turn to page 40 of the White Paper, where it is stated:
The effects of television programmes on viewers are of their nature difficult to determine.
I disagree with that and I shall show later that the research work has disagreed as well. The White Paper goes on:
However, the Government is in no doubt that the only safe course is for the broadcasting authorities to assume undesirable effects unless convincing evidence to the contrary emerges.
With all due respect to the BBC and the IBA, I do not think that they do assume undesirable effects. In fact, when the effects are most undesirable they seem to shut their eyes to it.
The White Paper states that the BBC and the IBA are alert to the dangers, but I doubt whether this is so. Let me give examples of two films. One appeared on 20 December 1978 at about 9 o'clock to 9.15 in the evening, and was called "Charlie Varrick". It was described by the headmaster of a school as a black comedy—that overworked phrase to attempt to justify that which cannot be justified.
The story was about a raid on a small bank in New Mexico by Charlie Varrick and others. In the end Charlie Varrick got the better of his pursuers. First—and we must remember that childen and teenagers of under 17 are seeing this, but particularly children—there is the bad language:
Young doesn't have the balls for a thing like that.
That is one sentence. Here is another
You don't have the balls of a bull canary bird.
There was a third statement, repeated twice:
No chicken-shit son of a bitch had better try and stop me.
I am asking the Government to try to appreciate the effect which that has on children. Then there are violent expressions:
They'll strip you naked and go to work on you with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.
The film shows masked men breaking into a bank and considerable gunfire. One man is shot in the bank and two policemen are shot outside. The car then drives off at high speed and deliberately crashes into the police car. The driver, Varrick's wife, is shot during the raid. She dies. Varrick and his partner take her to a lonely place where gunpowder and explosives are scattered about. They make their getaway and the car explodes with his wife in it, while Varrick is questioned by the police.
The Mafia investigator is very sadistic. He is shown punching and knocking a black man to the ground. He pushes a gun-shop owner, who is a cripple in a wheelchair, backwards in his chair against a wall to elicit information. They gain entrance to Varrick's caravan and they violently punch Varrick's colleague in the face and stomach and throw him back against the wall. He is then shown with his face bleeding. As he crawls across the caravan the investigator kicks him, then kicks


him again on the leg. He pulls his head downwards by the hair and takes out a penknife. Then, when Varrick's colleague is dead, they show him as having been subjected clearly to more violence, and he is covered in blood.
The investigator goes to a photographer, and she makes a pass at him. He strikes her across the face and then goes along to her bedroom with her. Another man there drives his car violently at his chief and kills him. Then Varrick makes a deal with the Mafia man. He tells him where the money is. The Mafia man opens the car boot, finds Varrick's dead accomplice, and the car explodes. The Mafia man's dead body is shown straddled across the car and Varrick gets away scot free. That film was shown at 9 o'clock in the evening.
I might also mention "The French Connection", where viewers see a man shot in the face. This was shown on BBC1 on 26 December 1978 at 9 o'clock. A man is shot in the face at point blank range in an alleyway and there is a brief shot of the effect on his face. He is pursued to a piece of waste ground and savagely beaten up and repeatedly kicked while on the ground. The same man, with his face covered in blood, is cornered by pursuers and violently threatened for information. A woman pushing a pram is shot and killed. A man boards a train and shoots a guard at point blank range and threatens the driver with a gun. A second man is shot on the train and his wounds are shown. There is gunfire during a police assault on a derelict building and one man is shot and killed.
Bad language also features here:
Are you both shitting me?
and
Shove it up your arse.
The headmaster says:
This is an American film shot on the streets of Brooklyn about an attempt to break a drug ring. An extremely violent film with a fair admixture of foul language … It was hard at times to distinguish the villains from the police, whose methods of pursuing the crime were, to say the least, unorthodox especially the violent car chase to beat the train …
Does this kind of thing have an effect on young people? I do not know whether the BBC and the Government realise this, but it does have an effect, and a very bad one. I was looking at a book

yesterday called "Sex, Violence and the Media" which was written in 1978 by Eysenck and Nias. They have done considerable and very deep research on this matter and they find that the evidence is unanimous that aggressive acts can be evoked by the viewing of violent scenes portrayed on film, television or in the theatre. They say that there is ample evidence that media violence increases viewer aggression.
Let me give two examples of things that happened not very long ago, which show the truth of this assertion. Three girls of about 17 made a sexual attack upon a little girl of 11 with a milk bottle. The effect on that girl, which she will feel for the rest of her life, cannot be gauged. When they were asked why they did it, they said they had seen the same thing on television in a film called "Born Innocent". This shows that the TV film had a direct effect on their actions.
Then, six months or a year ago, a young boy of 15 saw a hanging on television and said to his friends that he was going to see what it was like. He jumped into a noose and before his friends could cut him down he was dead.
Children are affected by what they see. The recommendation made by Eysenck and Nias is that makers of films, theatre and television programmes concerned with the portrayal of violence should show more responsibility than they have done so far.
The conclusion they reach is that this means that some form of censorship may be essential. I say "some form". I do not mean censorship of all sex and violence. They say that some form of censorship may be essential both as regards violence and as regards perverted sexual behaviour—again, not all violence or all sex. They suggest setting up a research team on some permanent basis to carry out research into problems raised by the possible antisocial effects of sex and violence on the media. The test which they give, and I agree with this, is whether the portrayal of pornography and violence has effects on many people which cause them to interfere with the lives, health and happiness of other people. In other words, the enjoyment which some people get out of these films must be weighed against the injury to or even the death of others. I agree with


that, and I ask my hon. Friend the Undersecretary of State seriously to consider the recommendations which are made in that book.
In the light of these recommendations, it is somewhat strange to read paragraph 105 of the White Paper. Paragraph 104 reads as follows:
The Government also endorses the spirit of the Annan Committee's recommendation that the broadcasting authorities should monitor the amount of violence in their programmes and should publish regularly their findings, and report thereon.
I agree with that entirely but, with all due respect, the Government are burying their heads in the sand when they go on to say in paragraph 105:
However, the Government endorses the Annan Committee's recommendation that the BBC and the IBA should continue to operate a policy of not showing before 9 p.m. television programmes which may be unsuitable for children".
It is well known that children today do not go to bed at 9 p.m. They do not obey their parents when they tell them to go to bed. Neither do teenagers under 18 go to bed at 9 p.m. The Government appear to appreciate that, because immediately preceding the sentence I have just read is this sentence:
There is evidence that many children spend a great deal of time watching television and that their choice of programme is not always supervised by their parents. It is known, moreover, that there is no time of the evening when there are not some children viewing, perhaps even in quite substantial numbers".
What on earth, therefore, is the use of saying that unsuitable films will not be broadcast before 9 p.m.? If substantial numbers of children watch television at all times in the evening, we must take action to prevent their seeing unsuitable films at any time. That is where the suggested research team comes in.
The research team I suggest is this. An independent board should be set up with the function of viewing films which it is proposed to show on television. There could be one board for both the IBA and the BBC, or there could be one for each. If the board considers that a film would be injurious to youngsters or teenagers under the age of 18, the broadcasting authority concerned should be prohibited from showing it. I therefore disagree with the White Paper when it states in paragraph 105:

It would not be reasonable to require the broadcasters to ensure that no material that might be considered unsuitable for children was broadcast at any time.
I am of the opposite opinion. If a film is unsuitable for children, it should not be broadcast. After all, we have not always had television. Before television came in, when parents wanted to see a film which was unsuitable for children, they used to go to the cinema to see it, and they can do that today. I do no see why children should be allowed to view films which may have a grave effect upon them. We must seriously consider the grave consequences that flow from youngsters seeing unsuitable films. Since the advent of television there has been a great increase in violence among children and young persons, and this must be stopped.
The board which I propose should have a changing membership. If the membership is static, the same people are watching the films year after year and become desensitised. Therefore, the membership should be changed every year or every two years.
I ask my hon. Friend to consider the representations I have made in an effort to protect our children and our society from the very serious effects from which they now suffer.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: The hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck) made a characteristically sincere and moving contribution to our debate, as he has on so many occasions in the past. We were all touched by the expression he gave to the feeling of loss of comradeship which he expects to experience when the time comes, as it will soon, for him to leave the House. May I say in turn how very much we shall miss him?
I am tempted to follow in detail the comments that the hon. Member made about violence. I shall make a few comments, but I shall not go into the detail that his observations deserve because there are other matters I should like to touch on, and I hope there will be an occasion when we can return to this controversial subject to which there are deep feelings on either side of the argument.
No one I have ever come across in the BBC or in the IBA thinks that violence


should be let loose. On the contrary, all the people I have met understand that programme makers bear a great responsibility to ensure that the young are not corrupted, as we believe can happen on occasion, by gratuitous scenes of violence which are introduced into some films for sadistic and thoroughly unworthy reasons.
In case those who read the debate feel that this matter is not taken seriously, it is worth saying that the question of violence has occupied the attention of both the IBA and the BBC considerably for a great many years, more especially during the past 18 months, no doubt in response to the growing public concern that has been voiced so intensely by the hon. Member for Watford.
I am a member of the joint advisory council of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. That Authority set up in May 1978 a working party to look into its own code of violence. I was a member of that committee. We recommended that in general the code, which was first published by the Authority in 1964 and revised in 1971, continued to be a useful statement of the principles to be followed by directors and schedulers. The code is fairly explicit, easy to follow and not lengthy. It has a powerful introduction which begins with these words:
All concerned in the making of programmes for Independent Television have to act within a series of constraints. They must take into account the degree of public concern about particular issues, the boundaries of public taste, the limits of the law and any available information from research about the short or longer term social consequences of their actions. How should constraints like these affect their judgment about the presentation of scenes of violence on television?
The code is then outlined, and those responsible for planning, production and scheduling of television programmes must keep it in mind when they are going about their respective duties.
There is a policy of the ITV companies and the BBC known as a family viewing policy which has a watershed of nine o'clock. As the hon. Member for Watford said, this is the witching hour when family viewing time ends, but many teenagers and younger children stay up past nine o'clock.

Mr. Critchley: Later than I do.

Mr. Johnson Smith: That is why my hon. Friend looks so well.
I believe that the conclusion drawn by the hon. Member for Watford is draconian, very drastic. It means that no film that we thought might have a harmful effect on a child could be shown. That, I presume, would be a film which contains specific examples of violence. That would lead us into very dangerous waters. Many people have different views about what is harmful to children, let alone adults. The play "Julius Caesar" contains a most gruesome death but is the set-piece for A-level students this year. A specific scene of violence might upset some children. Some people might argue that it would be harmful. I would not.
The hon. Gentleman's board of censorship would run immediately into the most terrible conflicts of advice tendered by different experts arguing that neither the young nor any section of the population can be insulated from violence. It is a tradition in plays and drama. It is part of natural life. To appoint a group of people to arbitrate in the manner suggested by the hon. Gentleman would defeat the purpose.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: The hon. Gentleman forgets that this system operates already in the cinema. There are X-certificate films to which no one under 18 years of age is allowed entry and U-films which those under 18 can see. Surely, a system can be introduced into television whereby films would be prohibited and parents would need to go to the cinema to see them.

Mr. Johnson Smith: Many films have a certificate attached to them indicating that they are not suitable for young children. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that no such film should be shown at any time on British television screens. That is too draconian a proposal and would be self-defeating.
Those who seek a radical solution of the kind the hon. Gentleman proposed, or others that I have heard, to the problems of violence on television, and with it an end, I suspect, to many of society's ills, are asking for the impossible. That is not to say that we should not try or that we cannot do better. The BBC has recently published a document that goes into some detail on the principles that should guide its own programme makers.


Out of respect to the hon. Gentleman, the document suggests that, in view of the large number of children known to be viewing on Friday and Saturday evenings beyond the witching hour of nine o'clock, special care is needed in assessing the context and style of programmes placed after that time on those days. As a consequence of the present situation, many films have not been shown or have had explicit scenes of sadism or violence taken out.
One respect in which both the ITV companies and the BBC have moved towards the hon. Gentleman's argument is the increase in the amount of information available to viewers when they are deciding what to view. That is why the IBA has welcomed the decision of TV Times to carry regular statements of ITV's system of film classification, based on the times at which films are considered suitable for showing. The IBA proposes to discuss with the programme companies how more information can be provided. A similar system is employed by the BBC.
A proposal that might be considered is to encourage the IBA and the BBC to come together on these matters to see if they can produce a joint document. This might advance the sensitivity of those responsible for programmes and perhaps increase the confidence of the public in this controversial area of television.
I am glad that the Home Secretary has returned. I am also delighted that there will be an election. Unlike him, I believe that he will not be a member of the next Administration. It will be for right hon. and hon. Friends of mine to bury the wretched proposal for the OBA and other proposals such as that to pose management boards between the officials of the BBC and the programme makers. Both those proposals are warmly endorsed by the Home Secretary. But they would only set back the development of broadcasting in this country and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) said, raise the sinister inference that there would be increased opportunities for Government interference.
In a more personal way, we shall regret the passing of the right hon. Gentleman from his role. All hon. Members on both sides of the House and

people in the broadcasting world have appreciated the careful attention he has given to the problems of broadcasting. He has approached these problems not only with geniality but also extreme sensitivity. Bearing in mind the many and arduous responsibilities he has borne as Home Secretary, we have been fortunate that such careful attention has been paid to these problems.
I strongly believe that the approach, outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot, to the development of the fourth channel is on the right lines. I regret that there has been polarisation of the debate. This polarisation has led people to suppose that there is one group in the House for ITV 2—the proposal that existing commercial companies should be given the right to put on any programme they want on a separate channel. It has been suggested that this is because the party to which I belong represents deep, dark, vested interests and that the alternative is to support some new worthy, highly moral and exciting venture which would develop the dimensions of broadcasting through an Open Broadcasting Authority. The way that the debate has been polarised has been superficial and unhelpful.
The resources for a fourth channel are already available in the existing ITV companies. These companies should not be denied their right and proper place in a fourth channel. It need not be a dominant place. It is feasible for the companies to be restricted to 40 per cent. of the contribution to the amount of viewing time made available.
Positive and detailed proposals have been made by the Independent Broadcasting Authority on the basis of complementarity. That is the right way to help ensure that the service can be cross-financed from the first commercial service. It is worth underlining this point by quoting Lady Plowden, chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, who is widely respected on both sides of the House for her sensitive and responsible approach to television. She told the Women's Advertising Club of London last year:
The resources needed for fourth channel programmes are already available in the ITV companies. The companies should therefore have their place—and their pride—in what appears on the fourth channel. It does not have to be a dominating place. But do not


ask them to hand money and facilities over to a competitor who will fight them for revenue and for kudos: that would not produce better television.
It might produce, on the contrary, the sort of situation so often criticised by members of the Annan committee and the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), namely, the chasing of the ratings that exists in the United States. I would have thought that the approach that I have outlined deserves close attention by the next Government. I believe it will receive that attention.
I would like to say a few words about the BBC. The Government record on this issue has been less than happy. The BBC has no more prescriptive right than has any other organisation to evade the consequences of inflation. It must, as I believe it has, developed restraint in its expenditure. It must learn to live within its own income. We know that its income is decided by the Government. Looking back over the past few years, I do not think that the Government have been fair to the BBC, for two reasons. By any independent yardstick, it has justified its expenditure in terms of productivity and quality and has shown that it is not wasteful. It would be wrong to deny it a reasonable increase bearing some relation to inflation.
In January 1968 a colour licence was £10. In November 1978 it was £25. That was an increase of 150 per cent. From January 1968 to November 1978 there was an increase in the RPI of 219 per cent. I am not suggesting that the licence fee should have increased by that percentage, or that the increase in the RPI may rightly be compared with the increase in the licence fee, but I do not believe that the BBC has had a fair crack of the whip.
Secondly, increases should not have been granted one year at a time. To grant annual increases is not encouraging BBC officials to behave responsibly. For example, there was an increase in July 1977 and another in November 1978. The BBC has found itself caught up in an inevitably expensive payroll increase. It was not wise to ask the BBC to finance current costs from increased financial borrowing powers.
It is little wonder that the BBC has suffered. Its morale has suffered, and some of the quality of its programming has suffered as a consequence. I am not

saying that the BBC has a right to anything that it wants, but I hope that the next Government will be able to give it a better base and a stronger financial future.
The last topic to which I refer has not been mentioned so far, although it has been the subject of some correspondence between myself and the Home Office. I emphasise that I have no commercial vested interest save in application as I am a member of a company that is involved at Brands Hatch. In that capacity I take the view that the introduction of citizens band radio and the technology applied to it could help the sporting world. It is in that respect alone that I have what might be described as an indirect interest. I have no financial interest.
Citizens band radio has saved lives in the United States, where it is widely used. We are yet to get the figures from Australia, where it has recently been introduced. It has created new jobs, helped to sustain the electronics industry and helped sports. In an article in The Economist it was said that citizens band radio is fun. Broadcasting, although it has serious purposes, is part of the fun. It should be fun. It is part of new technology. It has provided a great deal of fun, as does amateur radio, for many people of different walks of life. That is why I was especially pleased that the National Electronics Council recommended—I quote from a letter that I received from the Secretary of State—
a form of high quality citizens band radio".
The National Electronics Council has seven representatives from Government Departments and representatives of the electronics industry.
I understand that the council's proposal was opposed by the Home Office. The correspondence that I have clearly indicates that that was the response. Set out in the correspondence are the grounds on which the Home Office opposed the introduction of citizens band radio. It is also opposed by the Post Office, which is a monopoly. Naturally the Post Office does not wish its monopoly to be broken, although it should be.
The correspondence that I have indicates that the Home Office has felt over a period that there are strong technical reasons for objecting to the introduction of citizens band radio. I shall not go


into the details. However, we find that one technical argument after another may be rejected. The National Electronics Council recommended that we should introduce citizens band radio on a frequency higher than 27 megahertz. We know that considerable problems would be caused for those operating valuable services—for example, ambulances—if it were to operate on 27 mhz.
One of the main reasons that have led the Government to object to the introduction of citizens band radio is that they feel that it would not be used for serious purposes. I shall quote from a letter written to me by the Secretary of State dated 30 August 1978. It states:
The experience of other countries is significant; this has shown that the predominant use of citizens band radio is for non-serious purposes and that the socially useful purposes to which it has been put have been more than counter-balanced by anti-social abuse of the facility.
The Government should not be concerned to the extent that the right hon. Gentleman is about citizens band radio being used for serious or non-serious purposes any more than they should be concerned about publications being published on the ground that they are too frivolous.
There are problems associated with the public having unrestricted access to citizens band radio. It is interesting to consider how they have been dealt with in the United States. There is little doubt from the evidence that we have from the United States that it has performed useful purposes. According to an article that appeared in The Economist, about 500 lives a year are saved in the state of Ohio by the use of citizens band radio.
I quote from a letter to The Times from Dr. Alex Comfort, who requests the GPO to think again about citizens band radio. He wrote that he operates for an organisation called React. He explained that it is
one of the volunteer groups who monitor the American emergency channel. In the last month of very sporadic monitoring I called in 40 requests for assistance from cars, ships and the general public, and I am one of about 30 operators for React in this area.
The combination of mobile car-borne and base radios has halved the time it takes to get breakdown assistance and effectively multiplied police road patrols by five. Drivers have constant local fore-and-aft contact and warning of accidents and weather hazards.

If, in Britain, the police were to monitor the emergency channel directly, help could be available faster still.
He added:
I think if the Wild West can behave itself on the air, Britain could do so. I am not looking forward to the Ml in fog without it.
Those last words have a direct relationship to the extent that it may be feared that the use of citizens band radio will not always be as serious as Dr. Comfort describes, or that naughty words may get across.
I attended a private meeting held with the Minister for Telecommunications in Australia. I do not consider it indiscreet to reveal what the Minister said. Those in Australia were subjected to the usual arguments that citizens band radio would be difficult to monitor and control. As time passed it developed and became more and more uncontrollable. There was nothing very much that the authorities could do to stop that. Eventually they decided to embrace it and to bring it within regulatory control. The Minister's advice was "Do it. You will find that people will respond much more effectively than you think, and it will provide useful social purposes as well as providing a lot of fun for a lot of people."
I am arguing, as many of us have had to in the past, for more freedom in broadcasting. The right hon. Gentleman said earlier that he recognised that new technologies were coming forward. He said that he hoped that whoever formed the next Government would help to create a framework that would make it possible for the new technologies to be applied to a wider freedom of expression and to widen people's enjoyment of the technology that they have done so much to innovate in this country. And so do I.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I take up the remarks of the hon. Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith), at least in his graceful valedictories of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for introducing the debate and for his care of broadcasting over the years, and of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck). We wish my hon. Friend well after many years in this place. The House has been with him in his triumphs in not only the 1970 election, when he came within an ace of being defeated, but in the serious illnesses that


he has surmounted with great courage and with 100 per cent. success. He will be much missed in the House.
We are grateful for the fact that we are having the debate, although we are having it in a tomb-like atmosphere following the no-confidence debate. As the years have passed since the Annan committee reported, I have had nightmares of a perpetual debate, a sort of rerun of Sartre's "Huis Clos", in which the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) and myself, with the occasional presence of my hon. Friend the Undersecretary of State, are locked in an awful radiophonic workshop in the sky debating the Annan report and never getting anywhere with it. Lo and behold, as happens in all the best nightmares, I have woken up and found it to be true.
We shall not make any progress in this Parliament. All that we can do tonight is to go through the motions of saying that the White Paper should be and will be the precursor of legislation in the first Session of the next Labour Government. A great opportunity will have been missed if we do not take that road. It is a road which points to the kind of future which I believe broadcasting most needs for healthy development.
I had a spasm of encouragement a moment or two ago when I saw that there had been, in all the rushing to and fro on the Conservative Front Bench, an apparent purge and that the hon. Member for Aldershot, with his well-known weary cynicism in these matters, had been replaced by the Opposition spokesman on small businesses, the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen). I do not know what he was doing here, but for a dizzy moment I thought that pluralism had taken over and that there had been a putsch in the ranks of the crypto-monopolists who have, I am afraid, set about polarising this debate by their criticisms of the Annan proposals for plurality almost before the ink was dry on the Annan report.
If such attitudes could be removed and we had more of the healthy attitudes of the small entrepreneur, which are manifest among the independent producers who have been so despised, and who were again derided by the hon. Member

for Aldershot, more sense would perhaps be talked in this debate by the Conservatives. The argument that should be deployed for the reform of broadcasting is neither Left wing nor Right wing. It is essentially about how much plurality is thought to be a good thing. In other areas where there is no interest, financial or otherwise, the Tories are prepared to take that line. We have just heard it deployed in the case of the citizens band radio. They will not take that line, however, when they are allied with existing interests.
I believe that the White Paper was right to endorse the Annan principle of flexibility, diversity, editorial independence and public accountability. After a struggle, those appear as leitmotiv of the White Paper. However, the White Paper is more than one document. The archivists, as well as the archaeologists, of broadcasting will need to examine that. I say that because looking through the document I can see the mark of the earlier White Paper which was drafted for the Home Secretary but never saw the light of day in its original form, I am happy to say. The further I go into the White Paper, the more I see the traces of that earlier draft. It was changed and some of the key areas of the White Paper were changed, considerably for the better. Even so, they retained within them curious jumbles and mixtures, and we are not quite sure of the particular level of civilisation being excavated when we look at the ruins.
There is a considerable advance in the commitment made by the White Paper to at least a little more diversity. There is not as much as we should have liked and not as much as Annan recommended. Annan was so widely drawn from the population that any agreement secured there, painfully bought as it was, would have been guaranteed to convey a measure of consensual bliss to public opinion. Unhappily that has not been the case and the parties have become divided on many of our main findings.
I do not believe that the principle of plurality has gone far enough. We thought that local radio, this exciting and comparatively cheap and flexible medium, should be in other hands so as to facilitate its change into a different kind of broadcasting animal. We thought that that would best come about if it was run


and administered by people who were responsive to the need for broadcasting to grow out of the community rather than be imposed upon it.
We did not think that that would come from continuing with all the local radio stations linked with the existing duopoly of the BBC and the IBA. That was a great opportunity missed. The White Paper acknowledges that some of the existing stations do not have
'local' radio services which can be called genuinely local in all the areas in which they can be received.
That is the understatement of the century. Of course they do not because they are not aiming at the principle of locality for which I would argue.
Many people have shared the disappointment of the majority of the Annan committee that we could not go further with local radio. The communications group better known as "Comcon" said in a comparatively mild criticism of the White Paper that it would like to see whether we could not have a local broadcasting authority—a third force community broadcasting agency—to administer small locally owned stations which could be financed like the OBA from a multiplicity of sources. The White Paper envisages an LBA in miniature in the Home Office working party which has been set up to look at local broadcasting. In view of the composition of that working party and seeing how little effort has so far been made to involve community groups, I am not too sanguine about that line of approach.
More and more people plead the cause of real local community broadcasting. I have spoken to groups from Cardiff, Coventry and East London who have said that they want to run something different. They want to run a service rooted in, and owned by, the community. It would not be the conventional model of a capitalist company, on the one hand, and a BBC colonial station, on the other. They visualise a much smaller enterprise much more responsive to, as well as being owned by, the local community. I hope that my hon. Friend will say, and that the Government will continue to say, before and after the general election, that that is the line that the IBA should pursue.
It is a step forward that there will be open hearings. In such hearings the challenge of the local community to the pretensions behind the lath and plaster-work of local worthies, which will no doubt be the facade for many of the potential franchise holders, would be to make their case for more community involvement.
The BBC has emerged from this White Paper absolutely unscathed. Not a single blotting pad or drawing pin has been taken away from it. None of the local radio station has been touched. Everything is left except the money to run the show. That is the problem. We cannot organise and operate the BBC, if we accept the principle of the licence fee, without conveying that measure of independence which is the whole reason for the existence of the licence fee.
Once we reach the principle of annual review, that independence has gone. Once the BBC has to come back, cap in hand, to Parliament and to Governments, who are frequently perhaps a minority in the House, facing a general election or going through a period of unpopularity which for some reason or another affect Governments from time to time, we shall not have a rational estimate of what the BBC needs, taking inflation into account, over the medium to long haul. That is a problem which the Government have not faced in the past. This Government or the next must do that.
I do not believe that, having accepted the case for proper, secure and relatively independent financing of the BBC, we can say that all is well with the Corporation. The White Paper clearly does not. It suggests changes. My contention is that the White Paper has got that wrong. The suggested changes address themselves in the wrong way to the problem of how the BBC can be decentralised without dividing it. Political opinion in the House does not wish that to happen. How can the BBC governors be strengthened as guardians of the public interest and yet distanced from the apparat of the BBC? These are questions which have been in everyone's mind for a long time.
The Government have come up with the idea of separate service management boards for television, radio and external services, each chaired by a governor and including the Director General, and


otherwise comprising half BBC professionals and half appointees of the Home Secretary.
That idea has no parentage in the Annan report. We were given much evidence by business men and others of the way in which boards of management run in nationalised industries. The BBC is not a nationalised industry in that sense. It is a different type of organisation. We should not pursue the idea in the way in which it has been formulated.
Characteristically, the BBC has suggested an alternative which is suitable to it and which will carry some of the extra bureaucratisation which is implicit in the proposal but without what the BBC sees as the antibody of the Home Office appointees.
What would happen if there were Home Office appointees? The BBC would grow a protective tissue. The appointees would be lunched to death. They would be taken from one gathering to another. They would be given endless minutes and meetings with advisory boards. In no time they would be indisposed. They would not affect the nature of the Corporation, but they might be seen as a sinister introduction because of the origin of their appointments. Certainly, they would not guarantee the freedom to innovate and to operate in accordance with the real imperatives of the service which we wish to see in the BBC and elsewhere in broadcasting.
Some of the criticisms should not apply only to the proposed new service boards. They could apply equally to some of the members of advisory councils and boards of governors that have operated in broadcasting in the past. In error Sir Hugh Greene described the boards as being the brainchild of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy. He called them
nice new quangos for retired trade unionists and those who spent their lives implementing the policy of the government of the day.
That is a fine phrase, but it often applies to those who are already appointed to such jobs. We should look for a wider range of public opinion to be appointed to boards, advisory councils and so on.
We must examine how the problem of the BBC's size should be tackled. The problem is not disputed, although the Government have recoiled from the

drastic remedy of separating the one organisation into two or three parts.
Much has been made recently of the staff troubles at the BBC. To some extent they relate to the inflexibility which is common in large organisations, where the chain of command is stretched, where the people at the top understand less and less the problems of those in the lower echelons and where the lower echelons themselves proliferate. In a status-conscious organisation that is inevitable.
I have received a letter from a member of the BBC staff who has now left. He is a Mr. Cox who is now working elsewhere. He said:
The majority of BBC staff are more interested in Job Satisfaction than in money, provided that they can survive.
He had problems because he wanted to transfer from one side of the country to another and because he wanted to take leave at an. awkward time. He had a fairly distinguished record with the BBC, but he found that life became impossible. He said:
I can certainly confirm, from conversations with people who are working in my own (Video-tape) department, and who have since resigned from the BBC, that a number of them at least, made the decision to seek other work not as, a result of the level of pay, but specifically because of the management attitudes and the treatment of staff in the BBC … For my part,] have not heard any comment of an unfavourable nature made about my work (which has included the design of a new piece of equipment which the BBC has not previously had available) and my last two annual reports have been spotless.
That man left, as have many others. I cannot comment on some of the cases because they are sub judice, but this suggests that all is not well.
I do not attach blame to one side or the other. I do not attach blame to management or unions or to a particular level or department. If I compare today's situation with what it was when I worked with the BBC, it seems that there are real management problems which will become worse if they are left alone. The management service board proposal would not touch this problem.
I turn to the question of the ITV companies and whether there should be an ITV 2, as is suggested predictably by the Opposition. My views are well known. I do not believe that the introduction of an ITV 2 would provide the additional range of choices which we require. It


would enrich those who for 20 years or more have been enriched because of the existing companies.
Opposition Members may shake their heads, but 25 years ago when there was argument about breaking the BBC's monopoly many of them said that that monopoly was terrible. They criticised the BBC, saying that it was not in the best position to judge. They advocated healthy competition. They said that the new people might not be expert and might be new to the business but that they should be given the chance to try. That is the argument that we are using for the OBA.

Mr. Critchley: We shook our heads not because we did not believe that the independent companies have not made money—thank God that they have—but because we thought that the hon. Member's speech was falling below the high level that it once achieved.

Mr. Whitehead: I leave it to the profession and public opinion to decide whether the hon. Member for Aldershot is an adequate judge of what is a high or low level of speech in broadcasting. Some people would argue about the hon. Gentleman's qualifications as a judge in these matters. In his speech the hon. Member said that he had four questions to ask about the OBA. He asked who would run it, who would watch it, who would pay for it and who would work for it. I shall answer those questions in reverse order.
The hon. Member asked who would work for the OBA. The people who would work for the OBA are those who, over the last few years, have come to see a constriction within the broadcasting duopoly on innovation and on the types of programming in which they would like to be involved but which they see snuffed out by the imperatives of the existing service. They include many professionals in the service who have a high reputation and with a diversity of political and cultural views. The principal body campaigning is the Fourth Channel Group. Its membership includes those who are involved in making party political broadcasts for the Conservative Party and those who share my own modest views.
Within that group are an enormous number of people who say that we have

not seen more diversity and the development of more independent production companies in television because they have been stifled. They could not offer outlets. They could not say that they had a slot in television time when they went to their financial backers to try to start in the business. That has meant that many of the best and brightest people in television who have attempted to launch independent companies have failed. It has not been because of the quality of their products or projects but because the duopoly of outlets, which exists in television as it does in the cinema, has stifled initiative and new enterprise. It has also stifled new jobs and all of the other things which are supposed to be at the wisdom of the Conservative Party.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Will the hon. Member address himself to the IBA proposals? Why does he think that those proposals will stifle the creativity of the many excellent people who belong to the Fourth Channel Group and who are independent producers? After all, the IBA proposals are specifically designed to help that creativity which yearns to have expression.

Mr. Whitehead: Simply because the IBA proposals and the ITV proposals envisage channels which are run together. That would mean giving the lion's share of the programming and influence to the companies. The hon. Member for Aldershot gave the game away when he said of independent representation on the ITV2 that it would include "the independent programme writers, all three of them ". There is a feeling that that attitude is a sop to that wide body of opinion in the country which wants independent programme making to be given a far better guaranteed space than would otherwise be the case. There is no way in which an ITV 2, as it would be organised in practice, woud give the independent companies the kind of chance that the OBA would.

Mr. Critchley: Most of the independent producers are much happier working for the big companies. They go immediately on to schedule D, they are paid far more than the employees of the programme companies and they probably pay their tax 18 months after everybody else has done so. They are the majority of the so-called independent producers.


The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) has not distinguished between the independent producers and the independent makers of programmes, who are quite different.

Mr. Whitehead: How characteristic it is that the hon. Member for Aldershot sees incentives in terms of when and how late tax can be paid. A great many people working in broadcasting at all levels—whether they wish to come together as a group in a production company or whether they wish to work individually as freelances for a particular independent project—would be happier with the OBA solution. That is what they say. When they are given a voice and can make themselevs heard over the clamour of the vested interests in the business, that is what, time after time, the Association of Directors and Producers have said.
Many people in the freelance shop of the ACTT say that also—even with a union which appears in many ways to be in league with the companies. So do the people who gave evidence to Lord Annan on that point, as do the people who—as the hon. Member for Aldershot knows—came to the conference that we recently attended about the fourth channel.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: It is not right to dismiss the proposals of the IBA, which were spearheaded by Lady Plow-den, as a sop. To say that it is a con game and that producers are being conned by the big programme companies is not right. It is laid down that there would be a new planning body. That would schedule the services—in which the major companies would not have a majority. It is a sincere proposal and has every reason to be considered seriously in the context of trying to provide a more flexible response to the widening needs of the British public.

Mr. Whitehead: I accept that the proposals are put forward sincerely. Lady Plowden must plead her cause. The hon. Member for East Grinstead pleads it for her in this place. However, the difficulty is that the IBA's good intentions—if good intentions they are—will have to be seen against the imperatives of the scheduling and planning of the commercial operation. If the commercial companies were to be given a second channel, that would

enable the IBA to clear the first channel, the better to have competition in the ratings. The hon. Member for East Grin-stead does not seem to think that competition exists in this country. It exists all too much between BBC1 and ITV.
There would be a two-by-two competition which would have serious consequences for BBC2—which we should all like to see continue—as well as for the fourth channel. That dynamic would take over quickly from all the alleged guarantors of minority programming, independent producer slots and so on and they would add up eventually to one-fifth or one-seventh of the programming time.
I shall not weary the House by continuing this old argument. It is an argument which has to be put to the test at the polls along with many other matters. I believe that the people of the country will see it as a modest way of increasing the number of outlets, voices and ways in which opinions reach them.
When we look at the way that broadcasting develops in this country, we can see the need for it. I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) is present. Swindon Viewpoint, the small cable company, has survived the cutting off of finance from its backers and many other attempts to do away with it. It is a lesson to us all in what a small community service can do and it shows that in the undergrowth of broadcasting there are those who want to develop in a way that could be inconvenient to the large companies—the duopoly of the BBC and the IBA.
I am not happy about the ambiguity in the White Paper concerning the relationship between the OBA and the IBA. There is a suggestion that the commercial companies should have the right to bring their advertising with them in exchange for a rental and that the IBA should be consulted about the possibility of complementary schedules. It seems that a bridge is being built to earlier schemes which may have existed in an earlier draft of the White Paper for a form of ITV2—ITV2 by the back door. It is the essence of the OBA that neither should it be scheduled complementarity with ITV nor should the companies be allowed to dictate their terms of entry. Once that is done, the central importance of the OBA scheme is lost.
The hon. Member for Aldershot asked who would watch the channel and who would pay for it. The channel would be watched by a very small audience of between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. of the total viewing audience. The potential revenue raising from such an audience is not the same as that of ITV1 and it might be smaller than that of ITV2. However, the channel would reach different kinds of audiences and would cater for different needs, because it would be planned in a different way. I see that the hon. Member for Aldershot is shaking his head, but there are many who have argued more eloquently than I have on the matter.
It is a matter of some embarrassment to the Opposition that the advertisers have already said that they will be very interested in a channel of this sort. The chairman of the media circle, Mr. Terry Wheeler, said that
small specialist audiences could be of interest to specialist advertisers who, currently, cannot afford the mass-audience orientated prices of ITV. The Agency media buyer wants, therefore, programmes on the Fourth Channel which give definable, reasonably predictable but not necessarily huge audiences … This is a perfectly acceptable objective given the structure of the three existing channels and its achievement could provide programmes and audiences of interest to advertisers.
The advertisers want spot and not block advertising. It is possible that Annan is wrong about the matter. To say that they have turned the whole project down out of hand, that they do not think that it will work or could not be financed in large part from the honest toil of their industry is a misjudgment. The sponsors—those who have so far surfaced and given tongue on the matter—have argued that they could put a considerable amount of money into the OBA from the beginning.
Mr. Len Castle of CDC Promotions said recently:
There is no doubt that the sponsors I represent are very interested in the possibilities offered by an OBA-run Fourth Channel. I would then anticipate spending something in the order of £8,500,000 in the first year of operation".
Therefore, we are not talking about peanuts. We are talking of a significant contribution from the commercial sector to an independently-run OBA from its beginning. The rest of the money would

have to come initially—either directly or indirectly—from public sources. I see nothing wrong in that. Most of the great initiatives in broadcasting, as in education, in this country have come about with an element of public funding, at least at the outset. I see no reason to run away from that in the case of the OBA. I certainly see no reason to run away from that if, by introducing it, we are able to alter the whole working environment of broadcasting.
Even in the slightly morgue-like atmosphere of the debate, when we know that nothing can be done in this Parliament, we should affirm our faith that in the next Parliament we shall get pluralism on the way, whether the Opposition like it or not.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. Giles Shaw: I suppose that I must start by saying that I am the next undertaker in the debate. There is an odd atmosphere in the House.
I am not being directly critical of the Home Office, but we must recognise that the media have had a raw deal in the handling of their problems by Parliament. I am a member of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. We examined the IBA recently. The previous report on broadcasting in 1972 recommended that there should be a review of all broadcasting before Parliament made its final decision on matters such as the fourth channel. Our Select Committee found it difficult to understand why six years should have passed before that decision was taken. We now face another postponement and an inevitable review later.
The final discussion and decision must be given high priority in the next Session of Parliament when, I trust, my right hon. Friends will be able to determine the business of the House. The IBA's charter has been extended to 1982, and that already runs us into injury time in the way in which any allocation of new franchises should be properly planned for broadcasting on the television channel that is available.
We must recognise that we have not served the media well in postponing the decision on this crucial matter. I accept that that is partly because it is a matter of controversy and considerable difference of opinion, not only in the approach of


the Annan committee and its voluminous report, but in subsequent interpretations.
We must try to draw together the threads of agreement. I was delighted to hear the Home Secretary's generous tribute in the first area of agreement, namely, that the IBA has come of age, and has become a totally effective and efficient and reliable organisation and is here to stay.
The Select Committee recommended that one of the first things to be done by the House—if it ever has the good fortune to debate our report—should be to give the IBA permanent and statutory life. We felt it wrong that its life should be continually extended for relatively short periods and be subject to review. The current extension expires in 1982, which is a very short time away in terms of broadcasting technology. I hope that the next Government will decide to take that matter out of discussion and to give the IBA permanent, statutory life.
Our discussion is inevitably focused on a single television channel. The Select Committee's report discussed the possibility of other channels being available if there were room for them. Referring to the future allocation of vhf bands and the decisions that may be taken at the World Administrative Radio Conference in 1979 to transfer the use of those bands in Europe from broadcasting to mobile services or to divide them between those services and broadcasting, the Select Committee said:
if they remain assigned to broadcasting in the United Kingdom they could provide a fifth and sixth television channel, or be engineered to give regional coverage. Another option would be the use of band III for additional radio services using new modulation techniques. Decisions on these matters should be reached within the next two years if use is to be made of the released frequencies by 1983.
Perhaps the Minister who is to reply will tell us what are the prospects of the WARC agreeing to that change in the use of frequencies, which might allow us to consider not just the allocation of a single channel but the availability of several channels. If that were a possibility, much of the agonising about the allocation of what is seen to be the last channel of our television network would disappear.
The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) has a profound knowledge of these matters. He always complains that

on the existing narrow system—he keeps referring to it as a duopoly—there is inadequate room for the great creative talent that knocks on his door but seems not to knock successfully on the doors of companies and organisations involved in broadcasting.
The Select Committee took evidence in a survey that was, admittedly, primarily designed for local radio, but a number of organisations, including Comcon, appeared before us. We were impressed by the genuineness, enthusiasm and novelty of the way that they sought to use the radio medium.
However, while the Committee concluded that many of those organisations had ideas and initiatives, we had to ask whether it was correct for the State, with taxpayers' money, to back them or whether their initiative was not such as to attract audiences of a sufficient size to justify commercial investment. Those decisions have to be taken. It is not just a question of saying that we have available independent producers with talent that cannot be satisfied. If that talent is of the order that the hon. Member for Derby, North believes it to be, it should have satisfied a commercial objective a long time ago.
Another area of agreement is that independent local radio and BBC local radio are important developments. I was delighted that one of the Select Committee's recommendations was fairly rapidly acted on by the Government in the allocation of additional radio stations. I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) was right to say that we should move with rapidity to the 60 or so stations to which we are committed. If it is possible to deal with a wider network of local radio, that should be done.
Members of the Select Committee were fortunate to be able to travel in this country and overseas looking at local radio stations. My profound conviction is that this, of all media, is the best expression of the community at work and at home. I found encouraging the way in which, for example, Radio Clyde became a Scottish institution within a matter of months. Admittedly, Glasgow is a vast city and a fruitful territory in which to operate, but there was a clear dedication and enthusiasm there—just as there was


in the smaller stations such as Radio Orwell and Radio Victory.
There are clear demonstrations that a relatively small organisation—and all commercial radio stations are small—can provide a viable service to the community at modest cost, can be self-financing and can provide a substantial outlet for local talent.
Those are some of the areas of agreement between us. Inevitably, however, we have to take views that differ from some of the proposals in the White Paper. As my colleagues have also made clear, I do not favour the OBA. I have to declare an interest. I have been and still am involved with a company that is a substantial advertiser. I am also a consultant to an advertising agency and am undoubtedly tarnished with the advertising brush. That may be regarded as a disadvantage, but I do not think that it is.
Commercial involvement in television, with the importance that it inevitably attaches to ratings, has provided an enormous stimulus for economic development, jobs, growth and industry. That must be accepted. The advertising burden carried by television and local radio provides an important contribution to the national selling effort. I make no apology for saying that I regard the national selling effort as one of our more important investments in talent. There is, however, no inconsistency in saying that commercial television and radio through the mere mechanism of advertising money have somehow sullied the face of the nation and should therefore not be allowed their natural expansion.
A substantial lack of competition has sullied the commercial element in radio and television. Through the unwise statements of the late Lord Thompson it initially created an impression that the television franchise for a commercial station was a licence to print money. After years of enormous losses it undoubtedly produced enormous profits that caught the eye of the Government of the day and resulted in special tax arrangements that still exist. There was additionally for a time television advertisement duty. Other duties were also levied on operating independent television, because much monopoly characteristic was

at stake, with little competition to keep prices and costs lower.
The argument for the expansion or ITV into ITV2 must in large measure be one of competition, that two competing channels within the same general franchise of the Independent Broadcasting Authority would bring greater opportunity for competition. It might allow greater opportunity for advertisers to use the channel, for minority audiences and for lower ratings, but it is ostensibly to prevent a large monopoly from continuing.
Most of those who have been involved in companies as opposed to advertising agencies or within the ITV network would agree that there is a monopoly-aspect to independent television that is not healthy. That is why I am not impressed with the argument that existing ITV companies should in the ideal world be allocated their spot on ITV?.. If there is a real world and an opportunity for development of commercial television, I suspect that there could be new companies available with the new talent, which the hon. Member for Derby, North says is available, to provide more jobs in an industry that has already provided substantial talent of an international calibre. That is how I should like to look at ITV2.
When we come to the suggestion in the White Paper and the Annan recommendation on the OBA, we see a creature of a different kind, which could have been invented only by a committee. It provides a number of inbuilt inconsistencies. I understand fully the view that the hon. Member for Derby, North expresses, that Annan was seeking a different creature, not a BBC or an ITV type. The OBA is designed to be just that. Having taken a decision in principle to create something different, the great problem of the OBA is that it has to rely on simlar strains and inputs to make it work. The suggestion, for example, is put down in the White Paper on page 10:
It is also desirable that the fourth channel—
which is of course under the OBA in these proposals—
should develop a distinctive news service, althougth news gathering is an expensive operation and the Government recognises that at any rate in the shorter term the channel will need to look at existing sources for its news service.


It is nice to have four different versions of the same fact, but if news were to become a matter where, because it was different, a greater degre of fiction was perhaps acceptable, that is a pretty poor recommendation for an important part of a new television channel.
It may have to rely on existing news services, otherwise there is a completely repetitive performance. It is also unlikely that the programmes bought by the OBA will come in large measure from the existing independent television companies. There is much talent and some unused studio space available in some companies, but if it is suggested that an independent television company will devote its own production resources and skills to provide a programme that is to be sold to a network that would compete with it for the revenue of the same advertising sector, that is stretching the imagination beyond the point of boggle. It is most unlikely that ITV companies will want to underpin the development of what they would see as a competitor for advertising revenue by using their resources.
The hon. Member for Derby, North made a fair point in saying that the advertiser will place his money anywhere that he can find an audience suited to his marketing needs. With my experience of operating a company, I would find it extremely valuable to be able to reach small sectors of our community who are at present disenfranchised from television.
The argument here, however, is better looked at in terms of extending hours. There have been many attempts to do that. Certain existing television companies have attempted to run breakfast time programmes, programming in the early morning, and so on, to try to provide an extension of hours where small numbers of the community were available. That was given reasonable advertising support. The possibility of extending hours to widen the audience available and provide differing programmes for minority groups is an area that is underdeveloped within the existing ITV franchise. That question has not been fully exposed, and should be developed before one looks elsewhere.
The other problem with the OBA is that if it is to seek financing initially from the State and is hopeful—I use the word deliberately—of obtaining some of its

programming from the existing ITV companies, it will be a long time before it becomes viable. It has been recognised in the Government's White Paper and the Annan report originally that it could be a long haul before the OBA established itself as an entirely viable operator in such a competitive and expensive environment. It is difficult to think that this House would regard that as an undertaking that could be easily absorbed. It could be expensive and absorb a great deal of investment in a project that, unless underpinned, has a dicey future.
In the BBC we have the other great problem child, in terms of financing. It would be a grave error to saddle the House with a second problem child. In fact, we should try to determine and decide the correct way of financing the BBC first, before we undertake to extend the latitude that we give ourselves on behalf of the taxpayer to invest in and sustain another broadcasting authority for quite different although related purposes.
The debate tonight indicates how very difficult it is to solve the BBC's financing problem. I suspect that there may be an area of agreement in principle that somehow or other we should find a licensing system that we can make permanent with perhaps an inflation-proof element. If the licence fee rose each year, this would mean that the Corporation would not be kept on a shoestring, having to come back cap in hand at the end of each year. Clearly that is most debilitating. But there are few hon. Members who would willingly raise their hands in favour of a perpetual escalating figure to be allocated to the BBC by means of the licence fee.
More and more there is debate in this House about obtaining a different kind of value for that licence—the kind of value that pensioners seek which is already given to those living in wardened accommodation, or the kind of value which the majority of viewers do not physically obtain because the majority tend to be ITV viewers and the independent companies are financed from outside. However, we would be wise to tackle that problem and to find the correct solution before we tackle the OBA.
I summarise my views. First, on behalf of thet Select Committee, I would welcome any Government—but preferably a Conservative one—that would take


this next stage of giving the IBA its permanent statutory life. We would welcome a Government saying once and for all that the IBA fully deserves that degree of confidence.
Secondly, I urge the Under-Secretary to comment on the World Administrative Radio Conference 1979 negotiations. Might there be a chance of other television channels being made available? Thirdly, I believe that it is wrong to accept the proposals in the White Paper on the OBA. It is most unlikely that ITV companies will finance the productions on which it depends. I do not see that it can be easily financed other than at substantial cost for a considerable time.

Mr. Whitehead: The hon. Member has not said how he would organise the fourth channel. His argument appears to be that there should be a separate programme company or companies, thus breaking the monopoly of the sale of advertising revenue.

Mr. Shaw: Yes, I believe that additional companies would come forward to offer themselves for a second ITV channel if that was available. Personally, I would favour a second ITV channel of that kind.
One other possibility that I would not rule out is that existing television companies could be allowed to make then-franchise applications for areas in which they do not compete at present. For example, London Weekend could compete for Scottish franchises if it wished to do so. Then we would get a real degree of competition with the minimum amount of additional capital investment, and with possibly greater and quicker service to the public. I accept the inevitable reservation of adding to the ease with which an ITV company can make additional profits. But do not let us demerit that. The ITV companies went through some very difficult times before they emerged as viable operators.
I am quite clear in my mind that the fourth channel, if it be only the fourth, should as of right be allocated to an authority which has demonstrated that it can produce so much good television for so many viewers. I have no particular comment to make about the techniques

by which it should be controlled. I think that the idea of a Complaints Commission for example, is very sound. There can be discussions about its width of remit. It is more likely that it should deal with complaints about programme content rather than how the Authority or the individual company runs itself. I prefer that kind of remit to be handled by the hearings of companies as they come up for renewal of their franchises.
I welcome the White Paper's emphasis on public hearings and this kind of discussion. In the Select Committee we felt that this was a proper way for companies to proceed, in both radio and television. All in all, although this debate has not a great future before it, I think that we all recognise that television broadcasting certainly has. We wish it well, and the sooner the better.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. David Stoddart: I will not follow closely the speech of the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) except on one point—the financing of the BBC. Clearly we must find a different way of providing that organisation with sufficient finance to run its affairs properly in the interests of the nation.
Undoubtedly at present the BBC is the poor relation. It has an annual revenue that is £80 million less than that of the ITV companies. With this revenue the Corporation has to run not only BBC1 and BBC2 but its radio programmes. Inevitably, in these circumstances its equipment, staff and every aspect of the organisation is bound to suffer. We really must give this matter considerable attention in the future.
I am well aware that the BBC is very concerned about losing its financial independence. It believes that the existing licensing system gives it that independence. I think that the Corporation is wrong. Under the licensing system, it is at the mercy of the Government and, in the last analysis, at the mercy of the House of Commons as well. I do not believe that the BBC should be at anybody's mercy. We must find another method of financing the BBC in a manner that would dynamise its income in accordance with rises in the cost of living. Undoubtedly inflation has damaged the BBC in a way that it has not damaged many other public organisations.
The BBC has been unable to put up its prices and licence fees. It is not within the control of the BBC to meet its undoubted heavy, additional costs. I shall not suggest how that should be done. The BBC and the House should give this matter deep thought. The BBC is a national institution. Often I disagree with its views. Sometimes I think that it is biased against my party. Nevertheless, it is a great national organisation, which should not be starved of funds. It should be able to do its job properly without looking to see from where the next penny will come.

Mr. Giles Shaw: The hon. Gentleman will know that within the OBA proposal there is room for advertising investment as there is for taxation investment. Does he think that the BBC should seriously consider the possibility of advertising revenue? The BBC, through the Radio Times, earns about 35 per cent. of its revenue from advertising. The Guardian obtains about 60 per cent. of its necessary revenue from advertising. I do not believe that its editorial ability is thereby impaired one whit.

Mr. Stoddart: If the hon. Gentleman draws me on that point we shall have a much wider debate, as my views on advertising generally must then be aired.
Although the BBC must consider this problem, I should like to see the Corporation continue as it is, with no advertising revenue. In this pure form it gives a service which a good many people, including myself, welcome.
I am no expert in broadcasting, unlike other right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. My first point relates to access to television. I have no doubt that access to television screen time is limited. Access is dependent upon the companies, the BBC and the people who run the services for those organisations. Often some of us have the feeling that we see the same old faces and hear the same old voices time after time. There is little that is new in the programmes. That aspect needs consideration.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) refer to Swindon Viewpoint. In his absence, I thank him for his support over a long period for that project. This is a Swindon project. It is the only

such project left in the country. It started in a blaze of glory. The then Minister of Posts and Telecommunications—he was to be the last—opened Swindon Viewpoint. The people who backed it came down and put on a good show. It started in a blaze of glory. Eventually the cable companies were unable and unwilling to continue to finance it. It looked very much as though Swindon Viewpoint must die. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office listened to my representations with every sympathy and, indeed, did more, by arranging for a grant of £5,000. Nevertheless, the organisation costs about £60,000 a year to run. That is no mean sum.
Swindon Viewpoint is still running, as the result of its own efforts and the support of the people of Swindon. Everybody in Swindon has access to the service. If an organisation in the town wishes to make a programme, it has access to the programme. Those concerned may borrow cameras, receive instruction in their use, and receive assistance from the experts. They may then make their own programmes and show them to a limited but nevertheless integrated audience in Swindon and district. That experiment met with a good measure of success. I am sorry that it has not been followed up more closely by other organisations and, indeed, by the Home Department. That experiment could show the way towards better local services and better access for the public.
My second point concerns the issue of violence on television. I am glad that the White Paper refers to this matter. I am pleased that the BBC responded by means of the report by Miss Monica Sims and her committee. The BBC was good enough to note my interest in the subject and sent me a copy of the report, which I have read but not completely assimilated. It is altogether good that the BBC has responded. It has dealt with a difficult subject in a sensitive way. The report is well worth reading and I sincerely hope that it will have the effect that the committee obviously desired.
It is clear that many ordinary folk—certainly many hon. Members—feel that the amount of gratuitous violence shown on television can do nothing but harm to society, and particularly to young people. I have felt that over a long


time. I have discussed it in the past with the IBA and the BBC, but always I have been told that they have had lots of committees looking into this and that violence shown on television does not really make any difference. But now, fortunately, they are coming to the conclusion to which people of common sense came a very long time ago—that gratuitous violence and the continual showing of violence on the screen is bound to have a desensitising effect on the public generally, and a very serious and perhaps imitative effect on children and adolescents.
In its report the BBC has recognised this, and I am glad that it has done so. What is more, recognising that there are subjects and programmes in which violence must feature, it has not issued a list of do's and don'ts. The BBC realises that this cannot be done but, at the same time, it has issued guidance to its producers which, if followed, will, I believe, assist in reducing the amount of violence shown on BBC programmes.
As far as I know, there has been no response from the IBA. Perhaps it is coming. I hope that it will come soon. But, of course, the IBA has an ideal opportunity, between now and 1982, to ensure that, when the new licences are granted, the amount of violence shown on ITV programmes is considerably reduced. The IBA has the power now to lay down in contracts that the programme makers and the programme companies shall reduce the amount of violence shown. It has the power to make it a condition of the contract if violence is increased, or if gratuitous violence is shown, that the contract will be broken.
I hope that the IBA will look at this aspect and take a tough line when it is awarding the contracts to operate from 1982. It has this opportunity, and it is an opportunity that it ought to take. If it does so, it will be doing a service to the viewing public. Indeed, I believe that the IBA and the BBC would thereby contribute to a lessening of the undesirable and growing violence in our society today.

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I apologise to the House for having been absent during the early part of the debate. I was broadcasting, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I was taking part in a Welsh language party political programme. I am sure that the House would have wished me to take part in that programme, for, had I not been there, the programme would not have been balanced.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I take it that the hon. Gentleman's contribution was in the Welsh language.

Mr. Roberts: It was in the Welsh language, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but my present contribution will not be in the Welsh language.
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) made a number of very interesting points. He raised the question of the BBC and its future finances, and there is no doubt that there is a problem in connection with the licence fee. When he was tempted by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) to agree to advertising as a form of revenue for the BBC, he seemed reluctant to accept that suggestion, but there is considerable validity in the point that already quite a considerable amount of the BBC's revenue comes from its various publications.

Mr. Stoddart: I did not go into that, merely because I felt that it was something that the BBC should consider itself. If I considered it, I would ban advertising not only on the BBC but on ITV. I was trying not to become involved in my own prejudices in the matter.

Mr. Roberts: Perhaps at this stage we can at least agree that it is easier to raise advertising revenue than it is to raise licence fees.
The hon. Member for Swindon also mentioned Swindon Viewpoint, which I agree is a most interesting experiment in access to television. I wish that programme all success. I have seen some of its recorded programmes, and I was certainly impressed. While on the subject of access, perhaps the Minister can say something about citizens band radio. This is a system whereby radio is made accessible to the individual. I am told that many countries have citizens band radio, and certainly I have been deluged recently with representations on behalf of the Citizen Band Association.
One of the central points of this debate is the Government proposal to establish the Open Broadcasting Authority. I made


several criticisms of this concept in the debate on the Annan report in May 1977. I said then that a third authority would hot up the battle for viewers to the point of cut-throat competition. I referred to the world of sport, and to what might happen if, in addition to the BBC and ITV, there was a third contender for the right to televise sporting events. The bidding would rocket to galactic heights.
In the White Paper the Government sought to guard themselves and the OBA by stressing the obligation on the OBA
to provide programmes which cater for minority tastes and interests.
I believe that poses difficulties. I remember a time when wrestling and show jumping were minority tastes, but they are hardly that now. The problem with minority interests is that they can become majority interests almost overnight after exposure on television.
If we accept the Government's view on the OBA in relation to minority interests, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that this "abortion"—as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) called it—will be a perpetual drain on the Exchequer. It will not attract sponsors, for either block or spot advertising, sufficient to sustain the service. This is a major defect of the Government sheme. I fear that the OBA will be the ailing old Daily Herald of the air. Perhaps that is what the Government want.
The great attraction of our alternative—the allocation of the fourth channel to the IBA—is that the IBA positively wants the channel for complementary and minority interest programmes. It is in the best interests of the IBA to meet that requirement and to maintain the channel on that basis. Furthermore, an allocation of the channel to the IBA does not involve additional money from the taxpayer or the creation of a new bureaucratic authority, although clearly some additional staff will be called for.
Earlier, I talked about the relationship of a second IBA service with a Welsh language service, which is so close to our hearts in Wales. I see no reason to expatiate on that subject again. I welcome the remarks in the White Paper about local radio, and I totally agree with the idea of affiliated stations. I am

a member of one of the applicant groups for the Cardiff station, not only because of my abiding interest in radio, and because I share Mr. Speaker's love of our capital city, but because of my interest in the spread of independent local radio to other parts of Wales. I believe that there are certain other parts of Wales which could easily bear a small radio station.
However, I am wary of the Government's proposals to change the governing instruments of the BBC and to reconstitute the Welsh National Broadcasting Council so that it contains more people nominated by the Home Secretary. This would seem to thicken the wedge of potential government interference, already inserted by the proposal to inflict management boards on the Corporation.
I appreciate that the board of governors may have divided loyalties, but what is good for the Corporation should be good for the country and what is good for the country should be good for the Corporation. If it has not been so on occasion in the past, it is because the board has failed in its duty, usually to the public interest.
Even though the management boards are appointed, the dichotomy will persist, for the ultimate responsibility still lies with the board of governors. That is what makes the Government's proposal so sinister.
We live in stirring times. It is quite clear to me why the Government will not be able to introduce a broadcasting Bill either in this Parliament or the next. However, this debate has given us a chance to place our markers, as it were, and that must be a good thing.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Critchley: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I first say how much we shall miss the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck), and how interesting we found his speech. Violence, bad language and sex on television is a serious matter about which our constituents are extremely interested. A formidable lady in Hampshire recently asked me "What are your views on sex and violence?" I said that I was in favour of one but against the other.
I do not believe that violence should be shown on television as being a reward for itself. One must avoid that with very


great care. On the other hand, sex on television is relatively unimportant. It is the expression of violence, to which the hon. Member for Watford drew such eloquent attention, which ought to give us more cause for concern than perhaps sex.
As to bad language, it is extremely difficult for those who run television to know at any given moment what is acceptable and what is not. Quite clearly, whether we like it or not, fashions change. The best example of that is that when George Bernard Shaw originally wrote "Pygmalion" the phrase "Not bloody likely" was used to shock the upper class of the day. But when in 1960 the film was remade, that phrase was translated into "Move your bloody arse". The mind absolutely boggles at the thought of what it would be like if ever there were a remake in the 1980s or 1990s.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith), who very wisely has gone home to a good dinner, knows as much about broadcasting as, if not more than, anybody else on our side of the House. He referred to a dinner party that we attended at which the other guest was the Australian Minister for Broadcasting, who made a couple of points which I thought were very good. He said, first, "Whatever you do in this country you must not scrap the licence for the BBC, because in Australia we have got ourselves into all sorts of difficulties."
The second point the Australian Minister made was "Citizens band radio is going to happen; legalise for it first and you will find yourselves spared a great deal of trouble."
The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), who has returned from a cold supper, is an articulate spokesman with a special interest, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in that. Politics is a conflict of interests, and the hon. Member for Derby, North has represented his particular interest admirably and with skill. He sits, alas, for a marginal seat, but as an old friend and sparring partner I very much hope that he gets back. If he does not, he will at least have the consolation of yet another job in telly. I am told the starting salary for a producer in commercial television now is £18,000 a year. That, when compared with the

meagre sum with which Members of Parliament are rewarded—which I am told is equivalent to the pay of a Ford car assembly worker with overtime before the last increase—means that there is some consolation for failing to be elected to this House.
The debate has gone on long enough in arduous circumstances; as I said earlier, in conditions of life after death. All I would say in conclusion is that the Conservative Party's policy on broadcasting is distinctly different from that of the present Government. Were we to be elected on 3 May, we would introduce ITV2 as opposed to the OBA for the fourth channel. Having done that, I think we would then be under an obligation to think hard and long about what should be done about the fifth and sixth channels, and when we start to do that many of the views that have been put forward so admirably and consistently by the hon. Member for Derby, North may at last come into their own.

8.53 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): This debate, as has been said, has come at last, and most of the people who have taken part have a sustained interest in and knowledge of the subject. Therefore, this debate has been extremely useful. Whatever the outcome of the election, it will have been for the Government that follows a useful debate on these very important matters of broadcasting in a free and democratic society.
I want to reaffirm, first, the Government's commitment to the White Paper proposals and in particular to the plans set out for the fourth television channel. We intend to introduce legislation as early as possible next Session to implement these proposals. I say to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley), who has repeated his suggestion that there are differences between one Minister and another and between Ministers and civil servants, that I repeat that the Government are, as my right hon. Friend has already made clear, firmly committed to the setting up of an OBA, and anything else that he may see in it is pure speculation.
Secondly, although we have in mind a number of changes affecting both the BBC and IBA, it is our view, as it was that of the Annan committee, that there


is more to be praised than criticised in the performance of both organisations. Those changes which we have proposed are intended in the main to put greater emphasis on the accountability of the broadcasting organisations to the public on whose behalf they provide the television and radio services.
The Bill which we discussed earlier today will enable the Independent Broadcasting Authority to finance and undertake the construction of the fourth channel throughout the country. This means augmenting all existing uhf stations which currently provide BBC1, BBC2 and ITV with a fourth transmitter and allied equipment. With relatively few exceptions, a group of four frequency channels has been allocated to each uhf station in use and the stations have been planned from the outset to accommodate the equipment needed to broadcast a fourth television service. There are about 380 uhf stations currently in operation, and the Authority tells me that it would take about three years, to March 1982, to achieve 80 per cent. population coverage of the country, with a further 18 months—that is, to the end of 1983—to achieve about 86 per cent. coverage throughout the country. We believe that to give the fourth channel a fair start it must be available to this sort of proportion of the population in each region.
At the same time, once the main broadcasting legislation is on the statute book, which I hope will be the middle of next year, we shall also need to find and appoint the members of the OBA, and they in turn will need to find their staff and set up the necessary administrative organisation. Then, of course, work will start on acquiring the programmes and putting them together to make a service. Taking both the engineering work and the setting up of the OBA into account, it is likely to be 1983 at the earliest before actual broadcasting can start. But we should avoid the temptation to rush the fourth channel on the air with a limited or poorly thought out service.
The hon. Member for Aldershot and several other hon. Members mentioned the financing of the OBA. We think it right to allow block advertising and sponsorship, as recommended by the Annan committee, on the fourth channel. I assure hon. Members that there will

have to be careful controls for sponsorship. These two forms of advertising are unlikely, however, to generate anywhere near enough money to finance the fourth channel. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) said, there is an evident demand for more spot advertising time on television, and we decided that the OBA should be able to derive revenue from this source as well.
While in the longer term we are aiming for a largely self-financing channel, in the shorter term we accept that some Government financial assistance may be necessary, particularly to launch the channel. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) said, it is clear that there is a good deal of interest on the part of both advertisers and sponsors in the channel and there seems no reason why it should not derive substantial amounts of revenue from these sources.
It is difficult at this stage to estimate with accuracy either the likely revenues or the likely costs of the new service, particularly given the flexibility which we intend that the OBA should have in its operation. Much will depend, for example, on the proportion of time that is rented out to contractors and on the sources from which programmes are acquired. It remains our view that the OBA has the capability to become financially, as well as qualitatively, viable.
On the question of the licence fee of the BBC, which many hon. Members have mentioned, views in the House appear to differ, as they do outside, on how best to finance the BBC. Everyone appreciates that it is a problem. As the White Paper notes, the Annan committee made a thorough study of the licence fee and of possible alternatives to it. It specifically rejected proposals for financing the Corporation from direct Government grant. It also rejected other alternatives, such as advertising.
The Government believe that the BBC should continue to be financed primarily from the licence fee. We are conscious, however, that, with about 60 per cent. of licence holders holding colour licences and with this proportion increasing by about 10 per cent. a year, we must anticipate the end of the inherent buoyancy of the licence fee revenue. This will be a problem, and we shall continue to keep


the matter under review. My right hon. Friend has already mentioned the studies that we are carrying out in this area.
Many hon. Members have raised the subject of violence on television. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck), whose last speech was a typically eloquent one. I wish him every happiness in the future even if he is not to become a television producer when he leaves this House.
I know that the portrayal of violence on television is a subject of concern not only in this House but outside. The Government acknowledge, as many hon. Members have said, that the effects of television programmes on viewers are, of their nature, difficult to determine. We believe that the only safe course is for the broadcasting authorities to assume undesirable effects unless convincing evidence to the contrary emerges. I think that most hon. Members would prefer that attitude.
The authorities must be cautious in broadcasting programmes, particularly programmes in which violence is portrayed, if these might have effects on susceptible people, especially young people and children. I do not think that anyone in the House wants the Government to censor the content of any programme. But the Government White Paper called on the BBC and the IBA to review their codes and guidance on the portrayal of violence and, in due course, to publish them and then to keep them under regular review. It also called for a system to be devised of monitoring the amount of violence.
I am glad to be able to tell the House that both the BBC and the IBA have responded to this cal. The BBC last week published the report of a working party on the portrayal of violence in television programmes which contained a number of recommendations and was accompanied by guidelines for producers. The IBA also set up a working party, or rather reconvened the existing one, on the portrayal of violence in programmes. Its task was to consider the desirability of amending the ITV code, last revised in 1971. The IBA working party's report, made in the middle of last year, expressed general satisfaction with the code's principles and was followed by a special meeting, arranged

by the Authority. A number of specialists in the subject participated. The views of the IBA's general advisory council were also considered.
Right hon. and hon. Members will have seen the coverage given last week to the contents of the BBC report. The report concluded that the portrayal of violence on television could be justified in appropriate contexts only if all gratuitous violence is carefully avoided; that different considerations should apply to several kinds of programmes, such as news bulletins, current affairs programmes and fictional programmes; and, moreover, that the 9 p.m. watershed, which several hon. Members have mentioned, might be varied to a later time, especially at weekends when more children and teenagers are likely to be viewing at a later hour.
The IBA, in its conclusion on its review of its own practices, also considered that the contents of programmes shown before nine o'clock need careful scrutiny but did not reach a final decision on the need to make adjustments in its existing code. Both authorities have in mind the desirability of reaching a common approach to the problem of televised violence, and this the Government would welcome. A voluntary common approach should be the aim. I hope that shortly after Easter a joint discussion between the BBC and the IBA can be arranged. Progress is being made in the matter. I am sure that both the BBC and the IBA will have noted the strong feeling that exists on both sides of the House about this matter.

Mr. Stoddart: As I said in my remarks, the IBA now has an opportunity to ensure that anything it lays down about violence is enforced. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on that?

Dr. Summerskill: I would have thought that it was for the IBA to comment on that. My hon. Friend has given a view about what the IBA should do. The Government do not dictate to these companies what they should do. We can certainly bring strong views to their attention, as this House is doing tonight. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North is not here, so I shall leave the point that he raised, as several hon. Members have stayed for my winding-up speech.
The hon. Members for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith) and for Conway


mentioned citizens band radio. The Government do not deny that there would he benefits from its introduction. But, on the evidence at present available, we retain the view that the advantages of introducing such a service would be outweighed by the disadvantages. The disadvantages have been mentioned during the debate. We are aware of the useful purposes to which citizens band radio could be put. The experience of other countries is still that the serious purposes for which it could be used are outweighed by non-serious purposes. We are not sanguine, as are the proponents of citizens band radio, about the social effects of the introduction of the facility, which has been subject to widespread anti-social abuse in some instances in other countries. That is a fact that the Government must take seriously into account.
On balance, we would not at present agree to the introduction of citizens band radio. No doubt the argument and the discussion will continue.
I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North has rejoined us. He referred to the working party on local radio. The party has sought the views of about 50 representative bodies known to be interested in local radio. Comcon is among the bodies consulted. It has submitted its views and these will be considered by the working party. The party's future reports and proposals will be published in a way that will offer interested parties an opportunity to comment on such matters as the total coverage of local radio, proposals for particular local radio areas and the allocation to the BBC and IBA of those areas in which only one or other sort of local radio service may be provided.
The Government will reach decisions on the working party's further proposals in the light of the comments that are received and after such further consultation with the BBC and IBA that may be necessary.
The hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) is no longer in the Chamber, but he was interested in the World Administrative Radio Conference. The United Kingdom's firm proposals for the forthcoming conference, which will start on 24 September 1979, are now nearly complete and will be published shortly.
I think that I have dealt with the main points raised in this most interesting and useful debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Broadcasting (Command Paper No. 7294).

Resolved,
That the Supplemental Licence and Agreement between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the British Broadcasting Corporation, dated 8 March 1979, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19 March, be approved.—[Mr. John Evans.]

Orders of the Day — FIELD VEGETABLES (DESTRUCTION)

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr.
John Evans.]

9.9. p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: In the course of the last growing season in this country no less than 6,000 tonnes of cauliflowers were destroyed under the auspices of the intervention board. The board paid out £200,000 to buy them before they were destroyed. The Minister of State may say that 6,000 tonnes represents only a small percentage of last year's total crop. None the less, that quantity would have constituted vegetables for some 15 million families. Those families lost the opportunity of having cauliflowers on their table, and as taxpayers they had to pay for the destruction of those cauliflowers.
We know that every vegetable gardener may find, in the course of his year, that his garden has yielded more than his family can eat. Accordingly he puts his surplus on the compost heap. By the same principle the commercial vegetable grower finds it unprofitable to put his produce on the market at the prevailing price, and accordingly he ploughs those vegetables back. That has happened on countless occasions in years past. Everyone would agree that it is unavoidable, and nobody will deny the growers' right to do it.
What we are concerned about in this debate goes beyond that. We might ask ourselves whether the taxpayer should be called upon to buy those cauliflowers before they are destroyed at a time when millions of taxpayers—I do not exaggerate that number—are unable to afford to buy those cauliflowers. Moreover, it


is not a little galling for farm workers in my constituency to be instructed to destroy these same vegetables which their wives cannot afford to buy in the neighbouring shops. That is the case, and the Minister of State knows, as well as everyone else in the trade does, that the consumption of fresh vegetables has fallen in recent years.
That cannot be in anybody's interest and no commercial grower can rejoice about it. It is painfully obvious that the more we artificially raise the price of fresh vegetables, the more consumer resistance will grow to their purchase.
We are coerced into paying our taxes and we may ask whether it is right to coerce the British people into paying taxes if even the smallest fraction of that revenue is spent on destroying food which they would like to eat but cannot afford to buy because they are taxed too heavily.
I do not want to make a moral mountain out of a molehill, as the Eurocrats would call the £200,000. I believe that that operation would still be ethically doubtful if the sum were a mere tuppence. I hope that the Minister will not make the point that the cost is being borne by the taxpayers of the Common Market generally. I recognise that the money does indeed come from the Common Market budget, but the money going into that budget comes primarily from taxes and levies upon food. If the Common Market did not impose a high tax upon food imported from low-cost countries, it could not survive in its present form.
The wretched fact is that the British people now pay a higher tax upon the food that they prefer to eat than anyone else in the Common Market. I hope that the Minister of State will spare a minute or two to comment upon that, since we have longer than we expected to have.
The total of £200,000 may not sound much to the bureaucrats. Of course, it is a mere bagatelle compared with the massive sums that go to farmers and growers in the Common Market in order that those vast structural surpluses may be disposed of. Yet it works out at about 6p per cauliflower. It does not make the growing of cauliflowers profitable but it induces a number of cauliflower growers to take the risk and grow more than they would otherwise grow.
Syndicates of cauliflower growers in my constituency are willing to rent land at between £100 and £120 an acre. This is pushing up rents generally. Those farmers who grow wheat, potatoes, sugar beet and other important arable crops cannot possibly compete on those terms. I am sure that the Minister of State agrees with me. Many of my constituents who are tenants of the county council and the Crown Commissioners are facing rent increases and demands for rents of between £40 and £60 an acre. That is the consequence of inflating the rent of neighbouring land for the cultivation of vegetables and an indirect result of this branch of the intervention system.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) is in the Chamber, because I am sure that he will agree that another objection to the intervention system is that only a minority of growers benefit from it. If the system is to exist, it should be open to all commercial growers or to none. I should have thought that the matter was of sufficient consequence for the Minister to have made a statement about it at that time.
On the other hand, if the Minister did know about it, he must have been aware—or would have been advised had he asked about it—that there are ways of keeping cauliflowers. In my constituency it has been done by two processes—freezing and brining. I have seen both at work. Would it not have been more sensible to have urged the officials in Brussels to authorise some expenditure on the freezing or bringing of these cauliflowers so that they could have been eaten by British people later in the year when cauliflowers are scarce? Instead, as we have done this winter, we have had to import cauliflowers.
It seems mysterious that officially we heard so little about the destruction of the vegetables. I should be grateful for an explanation from the Minister as to why no publicity was given to the matter. We know that officials of the Ministry were present and supervised the destruction of these thousands of tons of cauliflowers.
It could be that the managers of the FEOGA fund in Brussels would not have wished to have £200,000 spent on the giving of a grant towards the freezing or brining of the vegetables so that they


might be eaten. There might have been an objection from our French competitors who are now successfully exporting cauliflowers to us at a very high price—certainly at a price which no farm worker in my constituency could afford to pay.
Those of us who have criticised the system of intervention would have been chided for being anti-Marketeers. It is now a term of some honour, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone would agree with me on that matter. The common agricultural policy of the Common Market is now effectively the only policy of the Common Market which is in existence. Of the Common Market total expenditure, 75 per cent. goes on the common agricultural policy. Of that percentage, 90 per cent. goes on the so-called guarantee fund—what we in plain English would call intervention. In criticising the intervention system, we are criticising the heart and soul of the common agricultural policy and, therefore, the Common Market.
My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone would agree that the Conservative Party is now persuaded that the Common agricultural policy is in drastic need of reform. He, like I, will be arguing in the forthcoming election campaign for that drastic reform.

Mr. John Wells: I hope that I shall be fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and that I shall be allowed to make my own argument on these points, rather than have words and thoughts put into my mind which may not be there.
The system was devised many years ago by a distinguished Dutch Commissioner for agriculture in the EEC. No doubt when he devised the scheme he had in mind the interests of his fellow countrymen in the Netherlands where all horticultural produce, with only insignificant exceptions, is marketed through a producer organisation. Thus he introduced the rule that, if the intervention or withdrawal system were to be allowed for horticultural produce, only a producer organisation should be allowed to dispose of vegetables in that way.
We do not use the phrase "producer organisation". We speak of "farmers' co-operatives". The Minister of State may be ideologically well disposed to the term"co-operative ", but let him not be

deceived. A far more apt description would be "syndicate". That is the word used in my constituency about such ventures.
In most cases, these syndicates consist of comparatively few farmers who farm several hundred or possibly a few thousand acres. The syndicates tend to be exclusive and it is difficult to get into one. For the ordinary grower, and the majority of my constituents are in that category, this sort of withdrawal system or intervention is not for them. They do not get into the act.
As a general rule, the smaller growers—those with 100 acres or less—sell their cauliflowers to a produce merchant. Even if they deal with two or three merchants, they cannot take advantage of the scheme because no produce merchant can count as a producer organisation. The position in the Netherlands is different. What might have been a suitable and fair system for the growers of the Netherlands is not suitable or fair for our growers.
Can the Minister of State justify that? Does he not accept the inherent unfair-ness of the system? If he has had no doubts about the system, why has he been so taciturn about it before today? There seems to have been a measure of secrecy about disruption of these cauliflowers. I am not thinking just of the question tabled by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) two or three weeks ago about the number of vegetables that had gone into intervention. The answer given to the hon. Gentleman was "None". The impression was given that no cauliflowers were disposed of in accordance with the instructions of the intervention board. It may be that there was a technical slip in the phrasing of the hon. Gentleman's question, because the answer foxed some of my constituents who commonly use the expression "putting the cauliflowers into intervention".
We now know more of the story and I have a slight suspicion that the Minister of State was not aware that thousands of cauliflowers were destroyed in the last growing season at the taxpayers' expense.

Mr. Body: I do not doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone will loyally support the official Conservative policy and join me in saying that the common agricultural policy is in need of


drastic reform. Of top priority is the way that we destroy good food at the expense of taxpayers, millions of whom are not only deprived of that food but cannot afford to buy it at that time.
It is galling for my constituents who are farm workers and who have to destroy food at a time when their wives cannot afford to buy it in the shops. That is what the intervention system has brought about, and we must reform it. I hope that the Minister will not seek to defend the indefensible.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) has given a vivid example, in the cauliflower scandal, of the inbuilt upward spiral in production costs and cost to the consumer. The cauliflower is an important winter vegetable that is widely eaten in this country and is deservedly popular. The indirect effect of being able to provide a relatively high price for a commodity is significant and has secondary effects on the surrounding agricultural area.
The hon. Member mentioned wheat and potatoes and the effect on rental of land. The cauliflower situation that he exposed eloquently and thoroughly tonight illustrates how the system of intervention buying can put up costs generally, and that is reflected in rents. The wide open spaces of the Lincolnshire countryside are ideally suited not only to cauliflowers but to many commodities for which prices are high in the EEC and in which there are surpluses.
According to an answer that I had in Hansard on 17 January, in column 804, the cost of agricultural land in 1970 was about £200 an acre. In 1978 it was over £1,000 an acre. In England and Wales, land prices have risen in that period by a factor of five, which outstrips most of the unfortunate effects of inflation over the past few years.
All that has been caused by an agriculture policy that does not have the prosperity of the countryside or the provision of a balanced agriculture system as a first priority. It derives from article 39 of the Treaty of Rome, which provides that the objectives of the common agricultural policy shall be to increase agricultural productivity, ensure a fair standard

of living for the agriculture community, stabilise markets, assure the availability of supplies, and ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices.
We notice the apparent decline in the order of priorities. As the hon. Member pointed out, the cauliflower growers, in attempting to provide greater productivity and to stabilise markets, appear to have affected the availability of supplies, and are therefore not providing the product at a reasonable price to consumers. That is the importance of the hon. Member's illustration. He demonstrated the irony of the producers of vegetables not being able to afford those vegetables in the local shops.
The assumptions about the common agricultural policy are not fulfilled by article 39 of the Treaty of Rome. By putting the priorities in that order and justifying intervention buying in order to stabilise markets, the CAP has erected a superstructure of enormous size on the agriculture industry not just of Britain but of the whole EEC. It is the influence and effect of the intervention board, which provides the authority and money for the ploughing in of cauliflowers, which is the key to the whole assumption.
We were used to hearing about food being burned, about coffee being fired in the fields, or various grains being put in railway engines to run them. At the time we tut-tutted and described this as immoral. To some extent it was, but in the circumstances that we faced in the past—particularly in the 1930s—the problem was that the crops were for sale at such low prices that there was no market for them. In the case that the hon. Member has described tonight, the contrary is true. There was a market for these vegetables and the price was not low by United Kingdom standards, but it was being kept up artificially. There is a difference of principle between the unfortunate need to plough in crops where there is surplus or glut and the example of cauliflowers.
People might ask about the alternative. The hon. Member mentioned storing these vegetables. I suspect that cauliflowers may not be susceptible to long-term storage. This is one of the disadvantages of vegetables. But an alternative to this is to sell these vegetables abroad, and that is what the intervention


boards for agricultural products do in most EEC countries.
In a written answer in January, I was told that the guarantee section, which funds this in the EEC, was likely to sell off 15 million tonnes of cereals from the EEC. That is one way of getting rid of the problem, but it is not a happy one. The same table showed that the same was likely to happen to 440,000 tonnes of skimmed milk powder, which fortunately can be stored, and 2·6 million tonnes of sugar, which is double the amount of tropical sugar that we import from sugar cane from the ACP countries of the European Community.
In that respect the intervention operation is confined not to the relatively perishable cauliflowers but to some of the basic foodstuffs that may be stored for long periods. The written answer showed that the export refunds paid for dumping food on the world market were likely to amount in 1979 to no less than £2,847 million of EEC taxpayers' money. That pales before the total support of £5,377 million given to agriculture as a whole.

Mr. Body: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a further, wicked cost on the Third world countries that receive the cereals at a reduced price? Only 10 per cent. of the arable land in the Sudan is now being cultivated. The Sudanese find that it is no longer worth while to cultivate their arable land, thus giving work to their own people, as they are in receipt of dumped cereals from the EEC. That causes unemployment and excessive poverty to the Third world countries in receipt of cereals.

Mr. Spearing: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. He has given an example of the result of this immoral and evil policy. Far from helping with world food supplies, the opposite is happening. Indeed, this may be proved by an article in Lloyd's List of 6 November 1978. It said that agreement on the world wheat pact was not reached in Geneva, and went on:
A large gap remains to be closed on the question of the size of world stocks. The United States has been adamant that nothing less than 30 million tonnes could effectively regulate the world price.…
The EEC, however, believes that world stocks of much over 15 million tonnes would overhang the market, depressing prices.

In other words, the EEC is denying to a hungry world the policies of storage that it claims for itself.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the point about the Sudan. That poor country cannot enter into the world market in today's conditions. It is driving out farmers who can produce food, especially those in the poor countries, in favour of food produced and paid for by EEC taxpayers. That is extraordinary.
Referring to cauliflowers and the interventinon board, the hon. Gentleman did not go into detail on the mechanism of repayment. He mentioned the substantial figure of £200,000 that the British agricultural intervention board paid out. What I suggest would bear inspection the recent report of the EEC Court of Auditors, reference C 313 of 30 December 1978, which goes into the question of the European agricultural guarantee fund. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the figures. A high proportion of all EEC expenditure goes into the support fund. It is from this fund that the farmers who have ploughed in the cauliflowers receive their money. It is the fund from which the exporters of wheat to the Sudan, and the exporters of other surplus foods, including butter to Russia, also receive their funds.
It is important that the House should understand the important mechanism by which this operates. I understand that exporting such foods is not done by the Commission or the national intervention boards; it is done by private contractors. Fortunately, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD—in its 1974 publication describes in detail how the EEC achieved this. It explains on page 45 that in calculating the threshold price—that is an interesting and complicated sum, into which I shall not go—it is possible at least for the difference between world prices and EEC prices perhaps to be rather greater than the fact On the market.
Paragraph 74 describes how the Commission sets restitution payments for cereals each week. It says:
They are uniform throughout the Community, but differ according to the country of destination to allow for the appropriate transport costs. However, the Commission has some latitude which enables it to fix the level of restitution payments to try to influence the development of internal markets and export flows.


In other words, the intervention boards for agricultural products in each nation State are given a certain amount of latitude, apparently by implication, to encourage export flows. That, of course, means more dumping and more cost to the consumer.
Here I revert to the auditors' report, because it provides some extraordinary facts. I refer to an EEC document. First, it reveals that the accounts since 1973 have not been finalised. The latest accounts of this vast agricultural surplus money machine to be finalised were in 1972, and even they have been changed. The report continues for about 20 pages.
I will not deal with all the points that arise, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will undertake in his reply at least to look briefly at some of them. It may well be that, with the plethora of EEC documents, it has not been drawn to his attention. We have a grievance in terms of the operation of this fund. This is the EEC Court of Auditors. They are not British or United Kingdom auditors, or critics of the scheme.
The report goes on to draw attention to the question of frauds and irregularities. The hon. Gentleman may or may not be able to put his finger on certain frauds relating to cauliflowers, but there are all sorts of complex operations which go on in respect of other commodities which are too complicated to be pursued even in the OECD booklet.
It is pointed out in the report that in 1977 the national intervention board reported 169 cases of fraud, amounting to approximately £5 million. That is a small sum relative to the sorts of sums with which the EEC deals, but it is a very big sum of public money.
Paragraph 2.70 states:
Clearly, these changes over such a short period cannot indicate either the real extent of fraud or the degree of care devoted by the Member States to prevent or curb it. A thorough analysis will be necessary before any opinion can be formed on these matters.
Instead of the auditors of accounts being able to say that in their opinion the accounts represent a fair and proper explanation of the true state of affairs, they go out of their way to state that they cannot say any such thing, because of the problems of detection of fraud.
Earlier on, rather potently, paragraph 2·24, in referring to the need to get up-to-date information, and get it quickly, states:
The court recognises that these aims which appear of fundamental importance to its role in the Community, will only be achieved over a period of time and by working with the institutions and other bodies concerned with the utmost co-operation possible.
In other words, the auditors hint that they have not been able to go into the accounts of the national intervention boards with sufficient detail in order to come to an opinion concerning the degree of fraud, because any fraud that exists is within the accounts and operations of the national intervention boards and not in the Commission accounts.

Mr. David Stoddart: My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) has drawn a most important matter to the attention of the House. Has this been reported in the British or Continental press? If the Comptroller and Auditor General had known that anything such as this had occurred in the accounts of any Government Department there would, quite rightly, have been a national scandal. However, I cannot recall this matter having been brought to our attention before.

Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart). I have not seen any reports of this in the press. I rather suspect—I blame no one for it—that this public document is probably known only to a very few people. I know of it myself only because of the excellent summary information in the documents with which Members of Parliament are provided. We knew that this audit board was set up some time ago, and this is its first report. I should also have mentioned that this is the first report of its kind, because the audit board was set up only after the United Kingdom entered the Community.
I have dealt with two points, and I shall now deal with the third. Earlier I explained the way in which national intervention boards put up exports on the world market through individual firms. The system is that individual firms tender or bid for amounts of food to export, and the highest bidder receives the contract. The intervention board then adds to the price that that bidder pays the difference between the world price and the EEC


price obtaining at the time—that is roughly equivalent to the levy. The bidder then gets the additional amount in order that he can export that food in the reverse direction.
The audit board says, at paragraph 2·95:
Once the minimum selling prices have been determined, each intervention agency is free to fix the basic price for the invitation to tender".
Some details are then given.
It is obviously in the Community's interest that this basic price is as high as the market conditions will allow. For this, the intervention agencies should adopt a ' commercial approach '.
Paragraph 2.96 reads:
The losses resulting from the differences between the purchase price and the selling price being supported by the Community budget, the intervention agencies have no incentive to take such a line. Furthermore, the Commission has few means of checking whether the basic price fixed is really the highest possible. This would assume powers of verification which it does not possess, and time-limits for carrying out these checks which can have no relevance to those it has for clearing the accounts. Attention must therefore be drawn to the absence of controls on this point and to the gaps in the regulations.
My fourth point on this matter relates to the advertisement of amounts for bidding. In paragraph 2.94(ii) the audit board says that
publications that advertise the invitations to tender (Community citizens who are resident in another Member State than their own are often not aware of the existence of such publications).
It goes on, in paragraph 2.101, to say:
In fact in many cases there is no publicity in the strict sense of the term. For example, a circular may simply be sent to the contractors who normally deal with the intervention agency, thereby restricting access to the offer to those large firms which have close links with each intervention agency.
The board goes on to criticise this noncommercial activity very heavily indeed and points out that in the replies there is no requirement for a reply from the Commission to this sort of practice. In other words, the audit board having pointed it out, it appears that the Commission has no reply to make to it.
My fifth point is connected with paragraph 2.113, which states that
It is obviously still necessary to determine whether the prices obtained under the various tenders are the highest possible, having regard to international market conditions. To this end, the Commission has regularly compared

the world market price and the fob price of the product … This method, which must take into account the final destination of the goods, hardly ever allows time for a decision to postpone or cancel the tender accepted.
This is an area which the Court has not yet been able to explore, because of its complex character and the changing nature of the factors to be considered.
Those are at least five points that I should like to draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend. A final point relates to paragraphs 2.98 to 2.103, where the Court stands by its comments that
Owing to the small number of firms in Europe dealing in the international trade of cereals, it is necessary to supervise very closely the actual conditions in which the information on tenders is distributed ".
There is enough there, I hope, to disturb the House, because the sum to which these comments refer is the £2,800 million. That is the area of export restitutions to which the auditors' comments that I have read out are applied. As I said, the accounts from 1972 have not been finalised.
Although the cauliflower example has led us into the principles of the operation of this guidance and guarantee fund, I hope that in reply to the more specific points made by the hon. Member for Holland with Boston my right hon. Friend will at least give an undertaking to the House that he and his Department will look into the operations of the United Kingdom Intervention Agency, which may well be under the aegis of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I hope he will ensure that when the time comes for this board to have a look at our books, some of the strictures that are clearly made in respect of other intervention agencies of other countries in the EEC will not be able to be applied to the United Kingdom.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. John Wells: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) on raising this very important matter. I support wholeheartedly that part of his speech in which he said that he wanted to support the well-being of those smaller farmers—although all farmers in his constituency are fairly affluent—who were not members of co-operative groups and who, therefore, could not get into the act, as it were. I must remind my hon. Friend, however, that all producer groups


are voluntary and that it is open to his constituents to join a producer group.

Mr. Body: No.

Mr. Wells: It is open to them if they so wish.

Mr. Body: They do not want to join.

Mr. Wells: They may not want to, but it is open to them. Therefore, it is not right to say that they cannot get in on the act. What my hon. Friend should say is that they do not want to go through the necessary hoops to do so.

Mr. Body: My hon. Friend may have some information that I have not received. I have tried very hard in recent weeks to ascertain the truth. I can find no small grower of less than 100 acres in respect of whom a welcoming mat was laid down to join these large syndicates. Yet it is such syndicates that know the system and are working it with some success.

Mr. Wells: I am not saying that these growers should necessarily join the large syndicates, but there is no reason why they should not start another one. I do not want to fall into a local argument about my hon. Friend's territory, which he must know very much better than any other hon. Member. We all respect his local knowledge.
We must understand the underlying background to this situation. In the past year, there has been this massive intervention because of abnormal weather conditions. That is one of the problems. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) made a learned speech about the theory of these matters, but it was a townsman's speech which forgot entirely the problems of the countryside, which are at the whim of the weather.
The problem with last autumn's cauliflower crop was that with the cold, wet summer followed by a mild, early autumn, two months' crop was jammed into one month. Therefore, in one month there was suddenly a massive over-supply. There has been a decline in acreage over the last five years. In 1974, there were nearly 16,000 hectares—
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, are voluntary and that it is open to his That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr.
Bates.]

Mr. Wells: In 1974 there were very nearly 16,000 hectares under cauliflower. The next year it was 15,700. The year after that it was only just over 14,000. The following year also it was 14,000. Last year, which is the year we are considering when this phenomenon arose, it was still under 15,000 for cauliflowers. Therefore, the acreage has decline.
My second point is that the two hon. Members who are anti-Marketeers must realise clearly that the United Kingdom production of cauliflower has gone up every year in the last five years. Taking the figures for the last three years only, United Kingdom production was 216,000 tons in 1976 and 280,000 tons in 1977, and there was a slight decline last year. My point, again, is that there was a slight decline in the overall picture last year.
The surplus, as I have already said, came all of a rush in a year when the total supply was less, but the percentage produced by the United Kingdom rose steadily from 86 per cent. three years ago to 92 per cent. two years ago and 93 per cent. last year. This means that in the year that my hon. Friend is grumbling about only 7 per cent. was imported and of that nearly one-third came from our good friends the Channel Islands. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to complain. The tonnage imported from my hon. Friend's old enemies, the Eight, in fact has declined. It was 20,000 tons three years ago, 19,000 tons two years ago, and 14,000 tons in the year about which he is complaining. So I think that my hon. Friend's anti-Market argument does not stand up.
Again, in respect of his complaint—and he was very reasonable about this, and so was the hon. Member for Newham, South—that cauliflowers ought to be put in brine or something, there was a bit too much of the "or something".

Mr. Body: "Or frozen", I said.

Mr. Wells: Precisely, but the problem about freezing is that it is extremely costly and the freezing equipment will be suddenly vacant and available just because the good Lord has provided such


a climate. There is not the spare freezing space waiting—

Mr. Body: No.

Mr. Wells: It is no good my lion. Friend saying "No". This is a fact. There is not spare tonnage of freezing capacity readily available when the good Lord provides a glut of cauliflower. Therefore, the only remedy is that which he suggested—brine—and there is no outlet there.
The intervention procedure comes into effect when the price of cauliflowers is about 80p for a box of 12. My hon. Friend says that the farm workers' wives in his constituency cannot pay the high price of cauliflowers. If they cannot pay 7p for a cauliflower, it is about time they could. He has put over a most specious argument.

Mr. Body: That was not the price in the market.

Mr. Wells: This is the price at which the intervention becomes effective. The other alternative which is sometimes touched upon is the possibility of giving it away to the institutions. There one gets all emotional about the waste of good food. I must say that the institutions have all entered into long-term contracts for their supply of vegetables. How would our excellent kitchens here, unless they were on strike, manage if they suddenly had a glut of cauliflower one day and my hon. Friend did not fancy cauliflower for his dinner? It would not do. They have entered into contracts for carrots and petit pois, and I do not know what else. My hon. Friend will go to dinner and order carrots or petit pois. He will not order cauliflower because there has been a glut in his constituency. That is not the way institutional catering works. Therefore, it would be impossible for the people undertaking the intervention arrangements to offload the produce as a gift to the institutions. It is not practical.

Mr. Body: What about the hospitals and the schools?

Mr. Wells: I know not the workings of the hospitals or the schools. I wish my hon. Friend would either stand up and intervene or remain silent. He made a long, interesting speech and I would like him to allow me to make a short but perhaps

boring speech. Will be bear with me while I bore him?
The National Farmers' Union, which represents small as well as large growers—indeed, one sometimes thinks that the NFU internal policy is too conditioned by the smaller farmers—supports this intervention system because it brings into the market stability and puts a floor price into the cauliflower market. The floor price is at a very modest level. The 80p a box I referred to covers only the labour, the container, the transport and the commission.
My hon. Friend made great play of the price of land and the cost of rents, and talked about astronomical figures. He cannot tell the House that £33 a tonne for cauliflowers will go to pay an astronomical rent to anyone. There is no element of rental in it. It is a bare loss saver for the grower.
I believe that this is a reasonable system. There is no compulsion on a producer group to destroy; it is merely offered to them as a possibility. At the price of approximately £33 a tonne we are not doing anything very terrible and we are getting a, firm, stable price and keeping my hon. Friend's constituents in production.

Mr. Body: No. Some of them.

Mr. Wells: That is good. If this were done away with, there can be little doubt that there would be a still further decline in the cauliflower acreage. If growers could not be assured of protection in a period of glut, there would be a further decline in the acreage and, what my hon. Friend would fear even more, imports from the Eight. He would be coming to the House the year after the intervention system was abolished grumbling that the Eight were sending us their miserable cauliflowers. I can imagine the speech my hon. Friend would make.

Mr. Body: No.

Mr. Wells: I wish that my hon. Friend would refrain from his sedentary interruptions.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Minion): Order. Hon. Members must not quarrel over cauliflowers.

Mr. Wells: Thank you for your kindly protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The fact


remains that there is no compulsion on anyone large to adopt the system, and there is no prohibition on anyone small from joining it. There may be a lack of desire to join, but they are free to do so if they wish.
I commend the system to the House and, although I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter, I think that the agricultural community as a whole welcomes the system as it stands.

10.9 p.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I would hate to get involved in a family quarrel, but I assure the hon. Members for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) and for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) that while they seem to be disagreeing about cauliflowers, my right hon. Friend is trying to sort things out in Brussels. I was interested in the suggestion that we are Ministers responsible for agriculture as well as food. That is an important point. We need to balance the interests of the producer with those of the consumer. To produce with little or no regard to the consumer is to do a disservice to both.
Hon. Members on the Opposition Benches and my hon. Friends will know that in trying to get rid of surpluses my right hon. Friend is going to move mountains. That is not a bad objective. The hon. Member for Holland with Boston has done a service tonight by giving us a chance to look at the situation that he details and to make comments. I am also grateful for the presence of my hon. Friends the Members for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart), who expressed concern, and the presence of the hon. Member for Maidstone, who has a particular interest as Master of the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers from 1977. I am not sure whether he still holds that eminent position, but at least he reached it, which indicates his interest in this debate.
In the brief time available, I want to make clear that it is not the aim of the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce to destroy field vegetables. I must therefore explain the market support arrangements for fresh fruit and vegetables used in the European Economic

Community. Before that, I will say a word about the traditional ways in which growers have customarily dealt with seasonal surpluses which are typical of this sector.
Prices of horticultural and other produce often depend on supply and demand. Both are affected by the vagaries of the weather. This can rapidly lead to very poor prices, either because of a local or a general surplus of supply in relation to demand and later, as growers react, to reduced production. It is common practice, and has been for centuries, for growers not to market their produce if the price they can get makes it unremunerative to send the produce to market. In such circumstances, as hon. Members will know, the usual practice has been to plough it in, although part of the answer should be greater attention to marketing, including the possibility of moving produce to centres of population where demand may be higher. This is one of the reasons for encouraging larger marketing units, such as grower co-operatives and producer organisations.
For perishable and bulky produce, even this may well not solve the problem of seasonal gluts. The hon. Member for Maidstone made the point about the timing of that. I emphasise, however, that the decision to destroy relatively small amounts of cauliflowers last autumn was taken not by the intervention board officials, remote from production areas, but by the producers on the spot, who could not find any other outlet for their surplus produce.
I want to refer to the producers' organisations and examine the reasons why they exist and how they are made up. For the purpose of making withdrawals from the market, a producers' organisation is any organisation of fruit and vegetable producers, established on the producers' own initiative. In particular, it promotes the concentration of supply and regularisation of producer prices, supplies technical means for presenting and marketing produce, sells the total output of members' produce, and also has rules for marketing which include improving product quality and adapting supply to the market requirements.
Producer organisations are voluntary organisations. Grant-aid is available for the first three years of their establishment, to encourage their formation and


to facilitate their operation, subject to certain conditions about the duration and effectiveness of their activities.
The hon. Member for Holland with Boston mentioned particularly the difficulties of the small producer compared with the larger organisations. These arrangements should help the smaller growers to form themselves into such organisations and, by their operating on a larger marketing unit, to enable them better to market their produce. The Community considers that, given the special features of the market in fruit and vegetables, the formation of producers' organisations with certain rules, in particular about marketing, is likely to contribute to the attainment of objectives of the common organisation of the market. Grant-aid is therefore available to encourage their formation and to help in their operations in the initial stages.
It is against this background that the Community has chosen producer organisations as the appropriate marketing bodies to engage in market withdrawals to help stabilise prices. The Community also had it in mind that these arrangements should help the small growers by becoming part of a larger marketing unit. This is something which the local people concerned might bear in mind.
The Community system recognises these problems and it tries to alleviate them. Briefly, for most fruits and vegetables, recognised producer organisations may themselves fix minimum prices below which members' produce may not be offered for sale and themselves finance any resulting withdrawals from their own funds, raised by a levy on their members' sales. Such expenditure is not compensated from Community funds except in special circumstances.
For certain fruits and vegetables of special importance to Community producers—those of interest to British growers being apples, pears, cauliflowers and tomatoes—the Community rules provide that serious disturbances of the market can be dealt with by way of compensation paid from Community funds for produce withdrawn from the market by producer organisaions, subject to certain conditions being met. For this purpose the Council of Ministers fixes each year, for each product, the prices from which seasonal scales of withdrawal prices

are derived. These vary from about 40 per cent. to 70 per cent. of the normal run of market prices. In practical terms, growers last autumn received in compensation about 2p per pound for their cauliflowers under these arrangements compared with a normal market price of some 4p to 5p per pound. That is a matter that the hon. Gentleman should bear in mind.

Mr. Body: Does the 4p to 5p per pound include the cost of boxes and transport?

Mr. Bishop: That is a factor that has to be taken into account. In the event of produce not having a market in places where transport is involved, it is some form of compensation.
In fixing these "safety net" withdrawal prices, the Council takes account of the need to contribute to the support of farmers' incomes, the need to stabilise market prices without leading to structural surpluses, and the need to consider the interests of consumers—on the basis of the trend of average Community producer prices in the past three years. If producer organisations withdraw produce from the market at not more than the relevant withdrawal price, they may claim compensation from Community funds. One of the conditions—this is clearly a very necessary one—is that withdrawn produce must be disposed of through outlets chosen to avoid further disruption of the market while at the same time aiming to the greatest extent possible to avoid destruction. These approved outlets include free gifts to charities and schools, use for animal feed and, for certain fruits, processing into industrial alcohol.
I recognise that in the circumstances it may not be possible to dispose of surpluses in that way. The hon. Member for Maidstone spoke about institutions, for example, knowing when the produce will come to them when a surplus is likely so that they may use that knowledge to advantage.
It is obvious that it would not be possible—as I have sometimes seen suggested—to make free distributions of produce to those who would normally be in the market to buy it. It is considered that to do anything like that would only be to weaken still further the market mechanism, which it is our object to support.
Supervision of these arrangements in the United Kingdom is undertaken by the intervention board, which is responsible for making compensation payments after deducting any receipts from approved disposals. Under the arrangements every effort is made to dispose of withdrawn produce for human consumption or, at worst, animal feed. However, with the best will in the world, with perishable produce in a glut we have to accept that it is not always possible to achieve that, and some produce, unfortunately, has to be destroyed before it becomes a nuisance. We are dealing now not with beef, for example, which would have gone into intervention if my right hon. Friend had not taken the view that beef is for eating, but with a commodity that cannot be easily stored and kept in good condition.
In 1978 when 6,098 tonnes of cauliflowers were withdrawn, mainly in Lincolnshire, there was the problem of a relatively sparsely populated area with similarly few livestock farms, and it was inevitable that some of the produce would have to be ploughed in.
I know something of the hon. Gentleman's constituency in Lincolnshire because I am one of his near neighbours, representing a constituency in Nottinghamshire. On the occasion when he is tied up in Lincolnshire, I am tied up elsewhere.
Withdrawals in this country have been small both absolutely and in relation to our production. They have, however, increased recently, and, taking cauliflowers as an example, in 1973 28 tonnes were withdrawn with compensation of £440. In 1974 it fell to 6 tonnes, with compensation of £121. In 1975 and 1976 we were clear, but in 1977 we went up to 405 tonnes with compensation of £13,298. In 1978 we had 6,098 tonnes withdrawn, which was about 2 per cent. of our production. That withdrawal attracted about £200,000 in compensation. Similarly, there have been small withdrawals of tomatoes, pears and apples.
Taking the figure at 2 per cent., this is a relatively small surplus. It is difficult, with our parliamentary and ministerial responsibilities and with what influence we have on market forces and the unpredictability of weather—where in a good weekend crops may be brought on—to

ensure a small surplus. Small surpluses are better than a shortage, and that fact must be borne in mind.
I am sure that we all found the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South very interesting. He made a reference to export refunds. It is a question of balance, but if export refunds do not help to encourage some exports there could well be more produce withdrawn.
In the horticulture sector, on balance, the export refunds are generally cheaper than the cost of the equivalent withdrawals. There are, however, no export refunds on cauliflowers.
My hon. Friend also spoke of the possibility of fraud. I assure the House, whether the matter be relevant or not, that the withdrawal arrangements are not abused. There is a careful scrutiny of the procedure. The disposal of withdrawn produce through the approved outlets is verified and the scheme is subject to audit. I give my hon. Friend the assurance that I shall carefully study his comments in the debate.

Mr. Spearing: I am very grateful that my right hon. Friend will look at my comments in the Official Report. I was asking his Department to look at the Official Journal of the EEC, from which I quoted.

Mr. Bishop: I take note of my hon. Friend's suggestion. One can put these fairly modest support arrangements into perspective by seeing them as a form of insurance to cushion both the producers and consumers against the effects of substantial fluctuations in supply.
Hon. Members accept that even before our entry into the Community there was a surplus for many years. It has been the producers' task to find an outlet.
The hon. Member for Holland with Boston asked about the bringing and freeezing of surpluses. Processing adds to the costs. The question of whether there is a consumer demand for the product at a remunerative price is involved. If a producer can provide an outlet for his produce, that increases demand for the produce. Whether money should be spent on encouraging the production and, likewise, the demand depends upon the demand for the product. Such an outlet is not an approved outlet for the purpose of withdrawals where the normal market


demand for the fresh product can be reduced and the market support defeated.
There are limits to the expenditure which can be incurred on these arrangements. As always, it is a matter of a reasonable balance between cost and advantage. Our main concern is to avoid the risk that these arrangements will degenerate into a system for encouraging uneconomic production and hence structural surpluses.
It is the producer's job to be sensitive to the demands of the market, to what the consumer will pay, the market and the other factors. That is why we should like the withdrawal prices to be frozen at their present level. That is the line that we are taking in the CAP price discussions. The Community knows that.
We are by no means enamoured of the Community's present system of supporting the market in this sector. In the United Kingdom we have sought to ensure that the system is not extended to more than the few sensitive crops already covered. We have not operated—as we might have done—the special arrangements for State buying-in. However, it is necessary to recognise that growers' returns are dependent on unforeseeable changes and changes in the weather—which affect not only the output of horticultural produce and the point at which it becomes ready for marketing but the consumer demand

for it. Unfortunately, the two do not necessarily coincide.
For this reason, the problem needs to be tackled at both ends. Accordingly, we have been encouraging not only the adoption of new and improved technologies aiming to regulate—as far as nature will allow—the availability of produce, but some necessary improvements in marketing, the better to adapt supply to consumer needs. The committee of inquiry into marketing which my right hon. Friend has proposed in the White Paper will be greatly concerned to advance this proposition.
The House knows of the present Government's intention to reform the CAP. One of the problems is high prices, which lead to surpluses. The other problem is to deal with surpluses, which lead to higher prices to the consumer and higher costs to the taxpayer. We have taken those factors into account in the past. We hope to resume the consideration of those problems when we are returned to power after the general election, so that we can put right some of the bad conditions that the Opposition accepted when they negotiated entering into the Community a few years ago.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.